Sword and Rain
by 1376
Summary: Third one, and it's going to take awhile. I know how it ends, but I have no idea how to get there. All rights to Mercedes Lackey.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** And I thought I was having a hard time with book two. So this one is taking a really long time because basically all I have is an ending and a character. So be patient and I hope it doesn't let you down.

 **Chapter one**

Eothen opened her eyes slowly. She was hoping that the light shining on them was just a part of her dream, but she was not so lucky. It was morning, sure enough. She sat up in her bedroll and groaned; the previous day had been a long one. Her troupe had just finished defeating the enemy lord; today was payday. She was a member of the Fire Eagles, a very old troupe that had once had an excellent reputation. She joined it because she had been told that one of her long-dead relatives had once been Captain; she found that hard to believe. Her great-grandfather had told her the stories he had heard from his grandfather, a man named Kurien, about a beloved aunt of his who had apparently been quite the character. She wasn't sure how much she believed, though; she knew enough about the bards to know that there was a great deal of exaggeration in their tales. In any case, however, the troupe as it was now only hired the finest fighters, but they were unscrupulous in which battles they fought; they fought for whichever noble paid the highest purse. Eothen had decided that heroic relative or not, she wouldn't return when her contract was up. She didn't want to fight for a troupe that had no morals.

She supposed, though, she was being too hard on her troupe leaders; it wasn't as if there actually were any ethical battles anymore. They came about, sure enough, every now and then; and when they did, her troupe was always on the right side. But mostly, the battles were one despotic noble against another, and if they were going to be fighting the battle anyway, they may as well get as much pay for it as they could. She sighed, uttered a particularly vile Shin'a'in curse and rolled out of her bedroll. She pulled her leathers on over her shift and began packing up her things for the journey back to the Fire Eagles' stronghold; the season, at least, was over. She had one more to survive before her contract was up. She didn't know what else she could do; she was a warrior, a member of a people who used to be warriors and were now just nomadic horse breeders. She wondered what it had been like for her ancestors; she was told that they had once lived on land specifically created for them by some powerful woman with eyes like stars, but she wasn't really sure if that was true. They didn't live anywhere in particular, anymore; they just wandered from town to town, selling their horses and their goods in exchange for the things they didn't make for themselves.

That wasn't much, actually; they made weaponry, and weavings, and all manner of leather goods. They trained in that weaponry as well, but for their own defense – not in defense of any particular land. They hunted for most of their food, scavenged what fruits and vegetables they could find and cooked over an open fire for their meals. They offered services as horse trainers, at least in her Clan; other Clans didn't breed horses, they did shows with large birds to entertain people instead. Her people trudged from town to town, with wagons laden with their belongings and their wares to sell. It wasn't a prosperous life, but it was an adventurous one; they got to see the country and meet all sorts of people. But Eothen had this unusual desire for more – she enjoyed her swordwork, and was good with a bow. She wanted to do more than roam the countryside weaving rugs and selling silver jewelry. Although, this particular morning, she wasn't so sure she wouldn't rather be traipsing along with her sisters and brothers, dancing and singing to attract the townspeople in order to sell them….whatever they could sell them.

This particular morning, she was just tired. Her muscles were sore from overuse, she had a few nagging injuries from the battles – a laceration here, a contusion there – that hurt. She wondered if spending a season or so dancing around a wagon with her family wouldn't be a good idea. Reconnect with her roots. Except, they never really felt like her roots. From the stories she'd been told, her people had been more than just the pathetic horse breeders they were now, wandering the villages trying to sell trinkets. There were many that kept trying to say that no, those were just stories, just legends, but she didn't think so. She thought they were true, or at least partly true. She wanted to go somewhere where she might be able to find out for sure. But for now, she finished loading her belongings onto her packhorse, a paint gelding named Inger, and loaded herself up onto her regular mount, a jet-black stallion named Orin. She was proud of Orin; he was a beautiful horse, and incredibly smart. He fought well on the field as well, which was not something that could be said of most of their horses; he seemed to have it in his blood as much as she had it in hers. She rode over to where the rest of the troupe had gathered and prepared for the long march back to the stronghold.

"Howdy, lass," said Rozem, a man from so far north and west no one had ever heard of his land. He described it as an island so green a person hardly knew another color existed, and his accent was so enjoyable that Eothen spent a lot of time listening to him tell stories about his people. "How ye be this fine mornin'?"

"I'm about as sore and tired as I've ever been, but I suppose that beats the fate of our comrades left behind," she answered.

"Aye, that be sure," said Rozem. "They be waitin' for their flowers to bloom above them wishin' they be on this journey home instead."

"How are you, Rozem?" she asked him.

"Methinks this be my last season, lass," said Rozem. "I had sure intended on stayin' on, but this last battle took more of me than I intended to offer."

That was certainly true. Rozem had taken an axe to the thigh that it was a miracle he had lived at all, much less kept the leg – but he would never walk the same again. He didn't own a horse, or at least not one that could fight; he had a pony, one from a breed from his land. Sturdy thing, for sure, and smart, sure-footed; but no fighter. He served as reliable transportation to and from a battlefield and was occasionally utilized to scout a difficult trail; but Rozem's injury would affect even the way he rode, and so even had his pony been appropriate to use in battle, it would not have been a good idea to try.

"Could you stay on and teach, perhaps?" asked Eothen. She hated to lose her friend; she didn't have many, to begin with.

"Perhaps, lass, perhaps," said Rozem. "But me bones be creakin', and I'm not bein' too sure I can move well enough to teach them young 'uns right. I be thinkin' on it, though."

As much as Eothen hated to admit it, Rozem was probably right. He had the knowledge to teach the new recruits, but the lack of flexibility he would have from now on would be a hindrance. She sighed. Maybe her friend wouldn't be fighting at her side anymore, but at least she didn't have to stand at his pyre.

"What will you do, then?" she asked, hoping the answer wouldn't take him too far away.

"Well, me ponies be right well respected around here," said Rozem. "I have me a few little mares, and a stallion, thought I might breed a few and sell 'em."

"Well, that's not a bad idea, but how will you make a profit at that without inbreeding?" she asked.

"That be my problem, for sure," said Rozem. "I don't suppose I could cross breed 'em with yer Orin, there?"

"Well, I don't see why not," said Eothen. It had once been true, she had been told, that her people did not crossbreed with horses of other peoples. But that had not been true for her lifetime, at least. They were selective, sure, but it was not forbidden.

"Then I might jest make me a go of it," said Rozem.

The ride back to their stronghold was uneventful, for the most part. There were the usual bandit attacks, which the troupe fended off well; there was the bruise here, the laceration there, but no casualties. It was a long ride; Eothen and Rozem worked out an arrangement for the crossbreeding of Orin to two of his mares in return for his stallion providing stud service for one of hers. She wasn't sure what she would do with the resultant foal; she wasn't personally in the horsebreeding business. But that was something to be worked out later. She could sell the foal, or have an extra mount for cliff scouting, or just a packhorse; she didn't have to decide just now.

But when they got back to the stronghold, they did not have the respite waiting for them that they had expected and desperately needed. It seemed that the banditry that had plagued them on their journey was not the only game in town; some group of outlaws had burned down their stronghold. There wasn't a hut left standing; it was a good thing that it seemed destruction was the miscreant's only goal, since the animals left behind were scattered, but intact. Eothen rounded up the two mares she had in addition to Orin and made a temporary shelter for them out of her battle tent and some broken tree branches, and then hurried off to where her hut had been; she was anxious to see what few of her belongings had perhaps survived. One, in particular, was precious to her.

Her hut had been on the edge of the stronghold, but even so it had not escaped destruction. What had once been her private home, her only permanence in a lifetime of wandering – first, with her nomadic people and now with a mercenary troupe – was but a pile of ash. All of her skins, painstakingly cured and hung on the walls for decoration and warmth, all of her furs she had kept in a trunk ready to warm her during the coming winter – gone. She wasn't so concerned with that; she had been paid, she could afford to buy a blanket, and it would be warm enough for a bit yet that her bedroll would suffice. She could perhaps manage to make one fur for herself between now and winter. Her foodstuffs were gone; she would have to replace those. And the cabinet they had been kept in, as well. She supposed she wouldn't have much left of that pay, once she had replaced what she could replace; she was grateful that most of the garden was left untouched. That was only because her hut had been on the edge, and she didn't plant her vegetables immediately next to her hut; she had cleared a small area some ways into the forest, instead. She had wanted to make sure no one could dump their night pots on her tomatoes.

She dug around in the rubble, trying not to cry as she recognized burnt fragments of weavings her mother had made, her sister, her grandmother; leather containers made by her father, her brothers, her grandfather. Her hunting bow was gone, as well as the arrows for it; but that could be remade, and her warbow would suffice until then. What she was really looking for took some digging, and pretty soon she was covered in soot from head to toe; but this item wasn't easily burnt.

She found it buried a good deal down below the surface. She was glad that whoever had burned their home had not been attempting to steal; this particular item would have been obviously valuable. It was a set of swords, very old, but very skillfully made; they had gracefully curved blades, braided handles with twisted gold and diamond-encrusted handguards. The leather wrappings had burned away, but they were not important. They had been replaced many times throughout the years, and most recently by her own hand. These blades were certainly still serviceable, but their age and their beauty made Eothen very hesitant to use them. They had been passed down through many generations of her family, and she was the most recent recipient; they had belonged, it was said, to that great-great many times great-grandfather Kurien's aunt, a famous warrior of her people named Taia. Taia was the family member rumored to have once Captained this mercenary troupe; Eothen as a child had loved hearing the stories about her, even while she doubted any of them were true.

It was ridiculous, she thought; a member of her family, a legendary warrior and mage? Trained by and lifebonded - what did that even mean, anyway? – to an equally legendary mage from one of the bird-clans? Magic wasn't real, everyone knew that. There were stories, of course, about people even now who could move things with their minds or read the thoughts of their friends – but those were just tricks. Games. Not real. And this legendary pair had joined a mercenary troupe, been its star members, her many-greats-aunt was its captain and led them to win historic battles that themselves were only distant history to people not even near any lands she had ever seen? Impossible. And then, this aunt that probably had never even existed, had gone on to lead the army of this far-away land against an equally impossible to believe army to save the entire world, and now the story was just getting ridiculous. There was no possible way anyone, no matter how powerful or talented, could get that many different countries to fight together against anything. Ever.

And that wasn't even the end! This aunt trained the younglings of this faraway nation, and then – this is where the story gets incoherent. The faraway land, they say, had an enemy threatening to attack, only they couldn't defend themselves. Eothen didn't understand that; surely, if this aunt of hers had managed to defeat the impossible army, she could have defeated this smaller one? But no. They never actually had a war. The aunt….disappeared for awhile, and when she reappeared, the emperor of that enemy country was dead and the threat was gone. There was wild speculation about that; did she kill the emperor? Did she merely incapacitate him? How? No one knew. Eothen would have long ago concluded that this long-ago relative was just a myth, like many others among her people. This aunt wasn't even the only mythical warrior of her people; she had heard the Hawk Clan's story of someone named Tarma, who sounded a great deal like her long-dead aunt. They were even both partnered with a yellow-haired mage. Perhaps they were actually the same person, Eothen didn't know. Perhaps neither of them had ever actually existed at all.

Except there were these swords. They were not the style her people made now; they rarely fought with swords anymore at all, the metal to make them was too hard to come by and too expensive to buy. They mostly fought with bow and knife, and occasionally a shortsword; Eothen was one of very few members that even knew how to use a sword, and had not had any actual practice with it until she joined the Fire Eagles. Her first season was spent as a horse archer, not a cavalry mount. These swords were clearly made by someone with talent, and they had enough faint nicks in the blade – which had been carefully maintained and regularly re-sharpened – that she could tell they had been used in actual battles. The handles, despite having been carefully covered with leather wrappings over the years to protect the metal as well as improve the grip of the user, nonetheless displayed obvious signs of wear, heavy wear, and by someone who knew what they were doing.

As much as the stories themselves seemed improbable, Eothen was certain that this Taia person had actually existed; whether or not all of the stories were true, she had no way of knowing. But a swordswoman, and probably a very good one, had once owned these swords. Eothen was sure of it.

She wished she could have met her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two**

The cleanup took the entire offseason. The huts had to be rebuilt, and quickly; winter wouldn't take long to arrive, and the entire troupe needed shelter. The horses, as well, would need protection from the impending snow and cold; there were a few hardy enough to withstand winter with only the shelter of the trees, but not many. Eothen built a lean-to for Orin out of her tent and some broken beams from her hut; she shared it with him until she had finished rebuilding the actual hut. Thatch was expensive this time of year; they were just after the last harvest of the season, and most of it had already been sold to the villagers. So instead they cut small branches from the trees and wove them together with the leaves still intact for the roof and laid boards across on either side for extra stability. Anything that had been burnt but was still usable was used; this was expensive work, and none of them wanted to use their entire seasons' pay to rebuild if they could help it. They would need to buy new supplies for the next season too, not to mention food to survive the winter itself. The walls themselves were made of mud daub packed around logs; next spring, they would be reinforced with cut boards on the outside to make them sturdier, and the inside too for anyone who had the funds and the time to do so, but they would be warm enough for now.

As soon as her hut was completed, Eothen began adding the addition onto her hut for Orin's shelter. Most of the troupe kept their mounts in a common stable, but Eothen felt more comfortable with her stallion close by. She made it large enough to accommodate her two mares as well, although she did build a wall to separate them; she didn't want them to fight or to breed too early. Her people valued their horses very highly, and were very careful with their care and breeding; Eothen did not want to take the chance that Orin would impregnate a mare without her knowledge, and more so she did not want the care of her horses to be left to someone who didn't know how to work with him. The mares would probably tolerate someone they recognized, but it wasn't definite; but while Orin was obedient, it was only to Eothen herself. Anyone else attempting to lead him or brush him would swiftly find themselves missing an arm. Not all of her peoples' horses were trained to be so aggressive and resistant to theft, but the ones with high value were; Orin definitely qualified, and besides, he was trained as a warhorse. He was entirely loyal to Eothen and would not tolerate another rider, not even if she tried to command it. He might reluctantly follow another on lead, if she were there and commanded it, but he would not do so otherwise.

The winter was spare, and cold; but Eothen had managed to take down a bear and cure the fur just in time to make a warm enough blanket, and she spent most of the winter under it. She made a new cabinet for the few foodstuffs she was able to buy and went hunting as frequently as she could; she spent most of her days curing whatever skins she had to make herself warmer gear. The bearskin functioned as both blanket and cloak until she got a wolf; soon enough she had rabbits she could make into gloves and liners for her boots. The fire had taken all of her winter gear, so she had to start all over; she looked a little ridiculous, wearing every single summerweight piece of clothing she had in layers until she had enough new winter clothing to wear. But by the end of the season, she did have a sufficient quantity of winterwear; just in time for spring and the new season of fighting.

Ordinarily, the winter would have been spent making repairs to the spring and summer gear, the weaponry, the armor; since the troupe instead had to spend the rest season hurriedly making repairs to the stronghold itself and re-making their winter gear before they froze to death, none of those repairs had been completed. So Eothen spent her travel time making those repairs from horseback; her people could do a lot of things while riding. They had to, since they very rarely stopped traveling; otherwise nothing would ever get repaired or made. So as she rode, she stitched her leather armor back together, she made new arrows, she hunted for small game and even the occasional deer in order to have the skins to make new leggings, new tunics, new soles for her boots. In the evenings she worked the skins and resharpened her swords and knives. It was a very busy journey, and by the time they arrived to their first battle she needed a vacation, but there was none to be had.

This season of fighting was, like so many before it, a mess. There was no order to it at all, as much as there could be said to have ever been order to battle. Eothen had learned from her elders about all the wars of history, where one leader abused his people and then attacks another in a blatant quest for power; the other leader heroically fights him off, and then despite being the winner remains benevolent towards both his people and the survivors of his foe. She wondered how much of that was ever actually true; was there really one bad guy and one good guy? Or did it just depend on which side she looked from? She could see, in fact, when she learned about the horrid King Ancar and how he had forced his people into battles in order to conquer Valdemar. He had been the king of a small nation, with limited resources, with the fabled Eastern Empire on one side threatening him and Valdemar, the land of plenty, on the other. Who wouldn't be tempted to try and take it? Ancar needed land and people, and Valdemar had it. On the other hand, Valdemar hadn't done anything to deserve his wrath; indeed, they had simply sat there and minded their own business. And Ancar was particularly abusive, both to his own people and to those he captured, so perhaps there was some degree of actual evil – but was it entirely black and white?

Eothen wasn't sure. She figured it didn't really matter much, that war was hundreds of years before her time. But she found history fascinating, so she wondered. These days, it was pretty difficult to believe that there was any such thing as "right" and "wrong" in a war, and it got harder every season. These weren't despotic nobles attacking benevolent ones, or at least not in any sense that one could choose sides and actually truly support them. This was one despotic noble attacking another despotic noble, and neither one better than the other, just fighting, constantly fighting, for more land, more power, more money, just – more. Eothen often wondered exactly what she thought she was doing; there was going to be fighting anyway, and she was fairly good at it, so why not make a living at it? But other days she couldn't reconcile the fact that she was making money by killing people. They knew what they were getting into when they signed up to fight, just like she did, or at least that's what she told herself; but she knew plenty of people who had signed up with mercenary troupes not because they wanted to fight, but because they had no other way to make a living. They didn't own land, so they couldn't farm. They had no education, so they couldn't teach, they didn't know how to make anything and no one would take them on as apprentice, there were any number of reasons people signed up in a mercenary troupe that had nothing to do with enjoying battle. She was under no illusion that the people on the other side of the field were any different.

She sighed as she slipped her armor on over her shift and strapped her swords and knives in their places. She was the only person she knew who fought with two swords, instead of a sword and a shield; it was a particular skill passed down in her family, supposedly from that legendary ancestor that had left her own swords to hang on Eothen's wall. It was actually the thing that convinced Eothen that whatever else this ancestor had been, she had actually existed and had actually been a relative of hers. The swords themselves, well, they were merely evidence that someone had once been a swordsperson; it was only legend that they had belonged to any particular person, let alone someone she was related to. It was the fighting style, unique even among her people, which she had learned at her father's knee that had convinced her. Somewhere along her family tree, someone had been trained by this ancestor, and passed on the knowledge all the way to her.

"Top o' the mornin' to ye, lass," said Rozem as Eothen walked up to the line for breakfast. He had decided to stay on with the troupe, not as a fighter but as an auxiliary member; he helped pack the supplies that the troupe shared, like the food, the healing supplies and the officers' tents. He helped cook that food during battle, when the troupe members were not expected to hunt and feed themselves. They also kept the camp clean and assisted with the removal and burial – or burning – of the casualties.

"Morning, Rozem," answered Eothen. "What's the grub today?"

"Biscuits, of course," said Rozem. "with venison gravy, boiled eggs and some berries."

"Hardly enough to fuel an army, as delicious as it sounds," said Eothen. "Are they getting stingy with the rations again?"

"But of course, my fine young friend," said Rozem. "But don't you worry, I be scooping on a bit o' meat to yours."

"Thank you," said Eothen.

"And while ye be fightin' I be out huntin' for more venison, maybe some pork," said Rozem. "Try to find us enough fresh meat for a decent dinner."  
"Even better," said Eothen.

For all its stinginess, the biscuits themselves were large and the gravy rich. Eothen ate her share and was grateful that it was at least delicious. The troupe was a little low on funds, since it was the beginning of the season and much of last season's pay had to go for rebuilding their homes. Still, Eothen felt certain that they had hunted enough meat along the way to provide a bit of meat, and not just gravy, with their meals. One more reason to not return when her contract ended. Problem was, she had no idea what to do next.

The battle raged. The two sides were fairly evenly matched, and neither was making much progress. Eothen fought well, and so did Orin; but at the end of the day, neither had taken – or lost – one inch of territory. Eothen trudged back to her tent and cleaned Orin's wounds, gave him a good rubdown and a bowl of mash; then she did the same for herself. She cleaned her weapons and checked them for flaws, cleaned her armor and repaired any damage; she re-stocked her quiver of arrows. She would need to make more arrows before the end of this campaign, but first she needed dinner.

"I see ye lived," said Rozem when Eothen got to him in the line. "I be right glad."

"Me too," said Eothen. "Not even a decent injury that might get me to the chirurgeon's tent instead of my own."

"Aye, but ye be glad of that, too," laughed Rozem.

"As much as I'd like to just sleep for awhile, you're right, I'm glad!" said Eothen.

She took her share of venison – Rozem had managed to get a deer, as had another of the auxiliary crew – so there was enough meat to go around. She had a slab of meat covered in that same rich gravy from breakfast, some mashed up root vegetable and a thick slice of crusty bread, all with plenty of gravy. She took her meal and her cup of kava and went back to her tent to eat; some of the troupe members ate together in the open area around the auxiliary camp, but she preferred to eat alone. She was a solitary sort; she had friends, like Rozem, but few of them. She didn't want to make many of them, since she was likely to lose them all – if not by her own death, by theirs. So she sat on the ground by the small fire in front of her tent and ate her dinner. It was delicious. When she was finished, she drank the rest of the kava and got to work making arrows. When she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, she slept – only to do it all again the next day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter three**

The rest of the season was much like the beginning, with one pointless battle after another. But it felt different to Eothen; it didn't seem like any of the battles were one side against the other, followed by another dispute with one side against the other. It felt more like there were six or eight sides, or rather any number of them, fighting against each other all at the same time; sometimes these two nobles were fighting each other, the next battle they were fighting together against a third person. There was no sense to it. The entire world seemed at war, albeit not nation by nation, but noble by noble. The governments of the nations tried to intervene, but they were only half-hearted in their efforts; their rulers were not much more than figureheads, and their armies, while well-trained, could not stand against the armies and mercenaries of all the nobles under them.

Most of the time, the governments withdrew in order to preserve themselves; they waited inside the borders of their capitals and hoped the fighting would play itself out. Some of the nations refused to allow the battles of nobles wage uncorrected, but they were not powerful enough to withstand the onslaught of such complete chaos; the Haighlei Empire was the first to fall, descending completely into anarchy and small cities ruling themselves, fighting amongst each other periodically in order to gain supremacy. Seejay was next. Jkatha was close to crumbling; the government still existed, but it held less and less sway over its population. Most people stopped paying their taxes; this only led to more fighting as the tax collectors attempted to enforce the law, and loyalists fought against anarchists to either comply or reject their rulings. Karse was still holding strong, and Rethwellan; any farther north than that, none of them really heard any news at all.

Eothen didn't much worry about the state of the nations, though; she worried about the state of her skin. At the moment, that state was in jeopardy. It had rained the day before; torrentially, in fact, to the point that the field was so muddy that she didn't want to use Orin. He would lame himself, or worse, trying to maneuver in this muck. On her own, as a foot soldier, she was knee deep in some dreadful combination of mud, blood and gore as she was defending herself against a maelstrom of enemy soldiers, some from this army, some from that – this was another of those strange battles where instead of having two identifiable sides, there were at least three and she wasn't sure if there were more than that. It didn't much matter to her; her job wasn't to determine which soldier belonged to which army, her job was to kill whoever was coming for her before they succeeded in killing her. Which at the moment, was not at all easy.

She parried one sword easily on her left and dispatched that attacker, and held off the more aggressive fighter on her right. The next attacker on her left was a pikeman; more difficult to fend off with her sword, particularly when most of her effort needed to be focused on her right. She cursed the fact that the pikeman was apparently well-off enough to have his pike reinforced with iron; most of the time, they were made of hard wood, which was strong but she was able to hack off the pike with her sword. This one, though, the best she could do was slap it away repeatedly before it could fully pierce her armor. She needed to be rid of this attacker on her right and in a hurry, or the pikeman would have her heart as a trophy. She parried the attacker on the right hard, planted her sword in the mud at her side and pulled a throwing knife; with a whole-hearted prayer to some ancient goddess, she threw it at the attacker's head. By some miracle it was on target and the man fell; she pulled her sword back from the ground and proceeded to parry the pikeman faster than he could reposition the pike and severed his arm.

It wasn't as if that would give her a break, though; this was a battle, between several different armies, each evenly matched against the next. She continued to defend herself against the next attacker, and the next, and the one after that until the light grew dim and no one could see well enough to kill each other anymore; someone sounded the bugles and the fighting died down as each side began to retreat towards…..well, no one was really sure where their individual camps were anymore, so even the retreat took a long time and was entirely disorganized. Eothen trudged back to her camp with the rest of her troupe; she was not undamaged. The pikeman had actually scored a good hit – for him – to her side, and she was bleeding fairly profusely. If she didn't see the chirurgeon soon it might be disastrous. So she dropped off her weapons and her armor at her tent, hoping she'd have time to clean them yet this evening, and went in her shift to the chirurgeon's tent. She hadn't realized that the armor had been keeping some degree of pressure on her wound, which was now bleeding freely down her side; she kept a hand over it, but by the time she arrived she was lightheaded and weak. She half sat, half fell into the waiting area with the world starting to spin out of control into darkness –

"Well," said some unidentifiable voice coming from somewhere out in the ether. "I see another one of you fools couldn't stay out of the way of a sword."

"Pike," she heard herself say. "It was a pike."

"Oh, even better," said the voice. "Get her up on a table."

Eothen felt hands under her arms and knees pick her up. She groaned – this was the first time she noticed that anything hurt. They laid her down on a table – and that was the last thing she knew.

When she woke, she groaned again; she wasn't on the table anymore, she was on a cot, and she hurt. She felt around her stomach where the pike had hit, and it was sore but bandaged; she could tell that the bandage was a little bloody from the stickiness, but it didn't seem to be out of control. Her arms and legs felt stiff; when she prodded at them, she noted stitches in various places where she had apparently been injured. She opened her eyes slowly. She looked around; there were soldiers on every single cot she could see and some on the ground. They were missing limbs, they were missing eyes, they had bandages on their heads and their bellies and the one next to her – well, he was dead.

"Look who's awake," said a voice that seemed oddly familiar. "When you got here I was fairly sure you weren't going to make it, but here you are."

"I wasn't that bad, it was just a pike stab," said Eothen. She was shocked at how raspy and weak her voice was.

"You lost a bit more than half your body's blood content," said the voice. "You should be dead. I am a good chirurgeon, but I have no idea why you're not dead."

"Well," said Eothen, "I guess I'm just too stubborn. When can I get back to work?"

"You fighters are all the same," said the chirurgeon, who was apparently the owner of the voice. "All the work I put into putting you back together, all you want to do is go out and ruin it as soon as you possibly can. You're as bad as Heralds, you are."

"Heralds?" asked Eothen. "What are Heralds?"

"I forget," said the chirurgeon. "They are the couriers of Valdemar. They spread messages, they raise armies, they fight bandits – that sort of thing. And all on these bright white horses with bright white uniforms, like they're trying to get themselves killed."

White uniforms? White horses? Who in their right mind would go fight a battle while being that obvious a target? There had been one white horse in her family's herd. He had been a beautiful stallion, and had a wonderful personality; but even her people, who mostly just traveled around, couldn't be traveling with a herd full of bright white horses. He was gelded.

"They don't sound very intelligent," said Eothen. "How is Valdemar such a stable country when their whole system depends on idiots in white? And here we are, wearing sensible colors for people on battlefields and we're falling apart every chance we get."

"Magic, I guess," said the chirurgeon.

"Phhttt," said Eothen. "You mean mind games? There's no such thing."

"Don't I know it," said the chirurgeon. "I hear some of them can make wounds heal just by thinking at them. What I wouldn't give for something like that around here! You get a new leg, you get a new leg – oh hellfires, new legs for everyone!"

Eothen laughed. Weakly. She sure could use a new….whatever it was that got hit by that pike.

"Seriously," said Eothen. "When can I get out of here?"

"You'll be here for about a sennight, maybe a bit less. I need to make sure your wound doesn't get infected and that it doesn't start bleeding again. Plus I know that if I send you back to your tent, you'll just disobey instructions and go back on the field, and all my miracle working will have been wasted," said the chirurgeon.

"On my honor, I wouldn't," said Eothen.

"That's the problem," said the chirurgeon. "You're a mercenary. Everyone knows you don't have any honor!"

"Hey!" said Eothen.

"Kidding, kidding," said the chirurgeon. "Still. Better safe than sorry."

It was a fair jest; Eothen knew that there were a great many mercenaries that in fact did not have any honor. There was a Guild, of course, and they had rules they were supposed to follow; the were allowed to break their contracts if they were in an untenable situation, they were not to turn attackers on the ones who hired them, they were not to loot and rape and pillage the villages they helped conquer; but it was well known that many troupes, or even individual members, broke these rules. They were supposed to be expelled from the Guild for breaking rules, but if the Guild was paid enough chit they usually turned a blind eye. The Fire Eagles were reputable, though; they did not extort their contractors, they did not break their contracts and they did not wreak havoc on any of the villages they conquered in any way. The chirurgeon knew that, which was why Eothen allowed him to survive the joke.

Also, she couldn't yet move.

She lay in that healing tent for half a sennight, and was released to her own after that only on the condition that she not re-enter the battle. While she was there, she got to know several of the healing tent staff, and no few of the other patients; she was the sad witness of limb amputations, gruesome deaths, and the worst – in her opinion – people who thought they had been repaired, thought they were going to be fine, end up with some kind of wound infection and die. The ones who had lost limbs or eyes, well that was terrible, but they lived; the ones who died outright never had the hope or the solace that they were going to be fine ripped out from under them. She trusted the chirurgeons and their helpers, but nonetheless she kept a careful monitoring of her own wounds, ready to point out the slightest tinge of pink, the smallest amount of drainage that didn't look quite right. In the end, though, she recovered nicely, and was allowed back on the field after the first sennight. During peacetime, the chirurgeon would likely have ordered her to remain inactive for a full moon; but this was not peacetime. Everyone who could fight was needed on the battlefield.

So Eothen fashioned an abdominal guard out of particularly hard-boiled leather as armor to protect her healing wound and sent a silent prayer to whatever gods may or may not care about her, and got back on the field. She resolved to only fight in battles that she could utilize Orin for, figuring that the added height would give her a little bit of extra protection; but of course, she didn't actually have the ability to pick and choose which battles she fought, so by the time this fight was over – they had won, but her wound was reopened and she had several new ones. So the trip to the next battle was spent visiting the chirurgeons, riding Orin in several rather unconventional positions including lying flat on her back with her head on his rump – good thing she had learned to do this on long travels with her family – and hoping she would be healed by the time she got to the next fight.

"Hello, lassie," said Rozem, riding up on his pony as Eothen was sprawled across Orin's rump. "How ya feelin' today?"

"Sore," said Eothen. "Wondering if this wound of mine is ever going to heal. But I'm on the right side of the grass. How are you?"

"Same," said Rozem. "Only minus the sore part, I jes' cooked! No more fight'n' for these old bones!"

"You're hardly old," said Eothen. "But then, neither am I; I only feel like an oldster."

"It be this life, lassie," said Rozem. "This life, it ages us all. The injuries add up, lassie, and we all be feelin' older than our years. It be the punishment for making our living by killing our brothers."

"That may well be true, my friend," said Eothen. "That may well be true."

The army rode on. They fought battle after battle; none of them were any different from the last. They were chaos, all with more than one army fighting in multiple directions; no one could tell who was enemy and who was ally anymore, and there were quite a few people killed by soldiers supposedly fighting on allied terms. Eothen didn't much care, and she knew her comrades felt the same; it made little difference which insignia was on anyone's armor. If he was attacking her, she would either die or she would kill him. She was not about to sacrifice herself in order to save the life of a supposed ally.

By the time the season ended, she was tired. Her contract was up; she had decided not to stay on. She had no idea what she would do, but she couldn't continue fighting battle after battle with no purpose to them that she could see. The world was chaos; there was no order, only one army fighting every other army for power and control, while the governments of the countries they fought in either crumbled in their attempt to restore order or they holed themselves up in their ever-shrinking capital cities in their attempt to pretend that nothing had changed and they were still in control. And they were; their sphere of control just shrank considerably than it had been in the past, or even from where it was in their imaginations. Many of the rulers that still existed believed that this chaos was only temporary, and eventually one of the armies fighting would defeat all the others; the rulers believed that when that happened, they would make concessions and deals and that army would become the new army of the nation, and they would retain control. Eothen did not think that was likely; in her experience, no one who had established that they were the most powerful leader around, as the commander of any eventually victorious army must be, would willingly hand over that power to some robed royal in a castle who had never even bloodied his own sword.

She returned with her troupe back to the stronghold; she did not have to announce her retirement just yet. She was allowed to remain in her hut for the offseason, but she must vacate by early spring to make room for any new recruits. They hadn't had many, lately; most fighters wanted to remain free agents, so they could fight for whichever army was demanding the highest price. Very few of them actually signed a contract anymore, but the Fire Eagles required at least one season's commitment for anyone to fight under their banner. Other troupes were not so picky; not only did they not require experience, but they would sign on fighters for one battle contract at a time. This was obviously beneficial to many fighters, who could go from troupe to troupe based on how much the battle contract was paying, rather than hoping that whatever troupe they had signed on with managed to garner the best fee. It was certainly contributing to the lawlessness of the mercenary troupes in general, and the lack of honor among the fighters, but Eothen didn't really see that there was anything anyone could do to fix it.

She spent the winter resting, hunting, gathering skins to make cloaks and clothing and curing meat to take with her. She spent a good deal of time in the tent of the chirurgeons, trying to finally get her pike wound to heal; it had been reopened several times over the fighting season and had become infected, but by the end of the winter season it had finally closed and no longer gave her pain. By spring, she had enough meat salted and cured to serve as travel rations and perhaps to trade in town for bread and fresh fruits; she wasn't sure what she was going to do for a living, so she needed to be able to feed herself until she could find work. She was a little bit scared; she had never been on her own without a plan before. She had left her family straight for the Fire Eagles and had planned on making the rounds of all the troupes if she failed to be accepted by them. She felt a little bit like a Clan of one of her people, since her plan to wander around offering up her services as a bodyguard or bandit relief was very much like the tradition of her people as a whole. She supposed that if nothing else worked, she could always return to them.

She hoped something else worked. As much as she loved her family and her people, she had no desire to return to them. She hadn't left them only so that she could go back home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter four**

Eothen spent the winter hunting, gathering as many skins as she could. She would need them to make herself clothing, but also to trade if she needed chit, so she made sure she had some bear, fox, and wolf furs in order to have more valuable skins for that purpose; deer hide was better used for her clothing, and rabbit for gloves or boot linings. When it was warm enough and the troupe was packing up for their first contract, she packed too; but not to go with them. She rounded up her small herd and loaded them with her belongings. She left camp and began riding west; she had no destination in mind, but east was not a land she was familiar with. She felt she was more likely to find work in an area she knew the customs and the language, and so west it was.

She rode for a moon, making her living by hunting and selling meat or skins in exchange for food or lodging. No one was looking for a bodyguard; and while there were plenty of bandits, no one was willing to pay her to do much about them. No one had the chit to do so; ironically, the bandits had already stolen everything anyone had of value. So she rode on. The towns she passed through in the beginning were fairly normal, with the people bustling about their daily business baking bread, selling candles, raising children. But as she traveled, the towns became more and more disorganized, with the people being afraid to be outside – sometimes just in the dark, but as she kept going they were afraid to be outside during the day, too. They would scuttle from one building to the next, rapping on doors with frightened urgency, the doors closing hard immediately after admitting the visitor. It was eerie, passing through towns that to all outward appearances were empty, except for the furtive glances of people from behind window curtains, and the fact that the buildings were well kept and not falling apart.

She rode slowly through each town, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible; she had been encountering bandits more and more frequently, and it was obvious that these townspeople had, as well. She couldn't blame them for being afraid, but at the same time, she was running low on chit; she needed to trade some skins, or sell some arrows, anything. She had been living on whatever meat she could hunt, whatever berries and fruit she could scavenge, in order to use what chit she had to feed her small herd; but she was running low. She wondered how her ancestors could travel such long distances and feed entire herds – real herds – as they transported them for sale, but she didn't know. It didn't matter; she couldn't emulate what she had no knowledge of. So she trudged on, spending what chit she did make to feed her horses, and faced the enormous likelihood that in the very near future she would need to sell one of them to feed the rest. And keep doing so until all she had left was Orin. And then she wasn't at all sure how she would feed him.

She had been fighting more and more bandits the farther she went, and had nagging injuries as a result. That old pike wound, while healed, still gave her trouble; the muscles didn't work quite the same, and it caused her quite a bit of pain. She was also stuck with a few lacerations, some of which she could stitch herself and some she couldn't; she hated stitching up her own wounds. She could handle stitching Orin's, or someone else's; but stitching her own made her a little queasy. She was riding along, minding her own business and contemplating her predicament when she realized – there were a lot of other people riding past her. And they were armed. And there were an equally large number of people riding towards her, also armed. Hellfires. She'd ambled into the middle of a battle. Wonderful.

She was glad the horses she wasn't riding had the good sense to run; she hoped she could find them later. She hoped she survived to find them later; it wasn't like she'd taken the time to put on her armor. She did draw her swords, though, when one of the soldiers started fighting her as if she had something to do with this battle – or even knew what battle was going on. She cursed herself for not paying more attention, and instead daydreaming about food and chit. She fended off that first fighter, and then just kept going; initially, she tried to find a quick way out of the battle, but she was engulfed before she knew what was happening. She cursed again; she was unlikely to survive this battle. Not only was she not wearing any armor, leaving her entirely unprotected against weapons of any kind, she hadn't prepared at all; she had no idea where she was in the grand scheme of the battle. When she fought with the troupe, she had usually had at least a general outline of the strategy and knew her place in it; when she fought bandits on her own, well, that was easy. It was her against everyone coming against her, and just like this battle, she was usually not wearing armor. So the best she could do here was imagine that this was just a really large bandit group.

She fought, and she fought hard; she knew she was getting hit with the occasional sword blow, an arrow, and there was a knife buried to the hilt in her left thigh. If she did survive the battle itself, she wasn't sure how she would ever survive her injuries; there wasn't a chirurgeon around, as far as she could tell, and if there was she had no idea which army they worked with or whether or not they would even treat her. But that was only a problem if she survived at all, which was by no means a certainty. She lost one of her swords and was forced to pull the shortsword instead; this was a serious disadvantage for her, since her right hand would be fighting with a weapon of significantly greater length and reach than her left. This, of course, led to a higher number of injuries on the left side than she might have otherwise incurred. She was fairly sure she would not survive; she knew she had a concussion from a hammerblow to her head, she had an arrow in her right shoulder, she had that stupid knife in her thigh, she wasn't entirely sure her right leg was still attached below the knee and that didn't even include the multiple sword blows she had on her left calf, her arms, her chest, and that old pike wound in her abdomen was bleeding again because she was pretty sure someone hit it with an axe. She was going to die.

Except she didn't. She was bleeding from more places than she could see, she had wounds everywhere – but the battle ended, and she was still alive. Orin was still alive, although he was considerably injured as well; she tried to dismount, to make it easier for him, and she fell from his saddle. She knew nothing more after that; she imagined she was dead. She had always believed that death would be peaceful, quiet; but she was finding it very loud. Frantic, even, with the voices of people screaming, moaning, and calling orders to each other. She existed in a world where she was alternately too cold or too hot, where the words people said around her didn't make any sense, and she hurt. Goddess, there was a lot of pain in death. That was another thing that surprised her; she had always been told that once a person died, they felt no more pain, but all she felt was pain. She heard a moan, one nearby, and she suddenly realized – it wasn't just nearby. It was her. She was moaning. Which meant –

She opened her eyes, slowly, and saw staring back at her the bluest eyes she'd ever seen in the face of – a horse?! What in hellfires was going on? First she thought she was dead, now she was alive and in pain, waking up to some strange blue-eyed horse? Who was looking at her with a level of intelligence and interest she found decidedly unnerving, by the way.

 _:Hello.:_ said a voice inside her head. What strange world was this, now, that she was hearing voices? She must be losing her mind. _:My name is Aladrian. You shall be mine.:_

"Who? What? I need a chirurgeon, or something, I've lost my mind. Help!" she cried as loud as she could. Which was embarrassingly quiet, there seemed to be something wrong with her voice.

 _:I am a Companion of Valdemar.:_ said the voice. It was definitely coming from the horse. And it was definitely in her head. She closed her eyes again and tried to wake up for real; clearly she was still dreaming. Clearly this was some strange fever-dream. Horses didn't have blue eyes, and that degree of whiteness in their coat was just not normal. And they sure didn't speak into someone's head.

 _:You are not dreaming, I am quite real. Although we are not what we once were. You shall be mine, and I shall be yours. You have not lost your mind, this is Mindspeech. You have the ability, although it is very weak. I will take you to the nearest chirurgeon, and then we shall be on our way.:_

"What are you talking about?!" Eothen exclaimed. "You're not taking me anywhere, I'm not able to ride, and besides, I have a horse. I don't need you."

Eothen was surprised that the horse – Companion, whatever it was – looked as if she had struck him.

 _:But - :_ said the voice in her head.

"What do you mean but?" said Eothen. "Look, I'm sure you're a great horse, but I've got a great horse. Where is Orin, anyway? I'm sure he's injured, I need to make sure he's being taken care of properly."

The white horse went trotting off, his hooves making an impossibly bell-like chime on the pavement. Eothen was positive this was some strange dream, despite that voice in her head telling her otherwise. She thought she had finally gotten past dreaming of impossible talking horses, and maybe her mind was coming back to her – but no. In a few moments he came trotting back, tugging on the reins of Orin. Who was injured, yes, but appeared to be whole and not incapacitated.

"Well ok then. I am in no condition to ride, so I hope there is someone around here who can help – " Eothen started to look around, but was interrupted both by the pain in trying to sit up and that voice in her head. Hellfires.

 _:You are correct. You are in no condition to ride Orin, and he is in no condition to be ridden. Your other mounts are nowhere to be found – I am sorry. I did try. I can carry you to the nearest chirurgeon, however, and Orin will follow. You will find the gait smooth, and I can block a good deal of your pain.:_

"You're a horse!" said Eothen. "How can your gait be any smoother than any other horse? How am I having a conversation with a horse talking in my head at all? This is insane. I am insane. I need to wake up now, I think."

Eothen closed her eyes hard, hoping that when she opened them again, this time she would be waking up for real and this crazy talking horse would be just some drug induced dream as she suspected and she would be in some chirurgeon's tent. She waited a few moments, then opened them again, slowly; first the left, then the right. But it didn't matter how many times she repeated this process; that white horse was still there, with his nose in her face, looking expectantly at her with those ridiculous blue eyes. A white horse. With blue eyes. Among her people such a creature would have been killed at birth, since it was likely blind and deaf and would be a hindrance to the Clan. Not that such a thing had ever happened, but still. And here she was, with a blue eyed talking horse, apparently not blind or deaf. She looked around, as best she could; moving hurt. She realized she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter; she had not moved from where she had fallen after the battle. She was surrounded by dead and dying soldiers, and that was certainly not where she wanted to be.

"Fine," said Eothen. "Fine. So you're a horse with a supremely steady gait, how is that supposed to make it any easier for me to ride?"

Aladrian walked with impossibly graceful steps over to where Eothen was lying on the ground. He folded his legs beneath him and laid down right next to her.

 _:Lay across my back.:_ said the voice. _:Roll so that your head is on my rump and your legs on either side of my neck.:_

"Oh, dignified," said Eothen.

 _:Can you think of better way? Or would you prefer to lie here with all of these dead soldiers until you join them? No one is coming to help them.:_ said the voice.

Unfortunately, the horse was right. She couldn't think of a better way. But then, she also couldn't think of a way to get to his back at all. She was covered in blood; a good deal of it was her own, and she hadn't actually taken the time to assess her own injuries yet. She'd been a bit distracted by a voice in her head and a white horse. So she looked around. She had the knife in her left thigh, the concussion, the arrow wound in her shoulder – and sure enough, her right leg was barely still attached below the knee. She did not see how it would possibly stay attached at all, after riding on a horse with what was left of it dangling; she also wasn't sure how she hadn't bled to death from the wound.

 _:I placed a kind of mental tourniquet around your leg above the injury. It should last until we get somewhere where it can be saved.:_ said the voice.

Fantastic. In addition to those, that stupid pike wound had opened again. She had another sword blow to her left ribcage and was pretty sure a couple of ribs were broken, in addition to her right arm. Her left hand was missing the fifth finger entirely and there were lacerations all the way up her arm; there were similar lacerations along her right arm, as well as quite a few on her back. Her nose was broken. Her mouth was bleeding, but she wasn't missing any teeth. One was loose, though, so that might change. Anyway. How to drag her mangled body across the back of this horse? This was going to hurt.

She still had the knife in her left thigh, and the missing finger on the hand, but the limbs on that side were relatively intact. Bleeding and in pain, but intact. She used that arm to push herself to a seated position – and nearly blacked out from pain.

 _:Breathe.:_ said the voice. _:Keep breathing. Slow breathing, slow movements.:_

Brilliant, Eothen thought. Brilliant. She used her left leg and arm to drag herself over to where the white horse was lying patiently on the ground and realized that he had placed himself precisely in position so that this would be the most feasible. She lifted her left leg over the horse so that it was hanging over his neck, and then used it to grip while she lifted her left side, with her left shoulder underneath her, onto the horse's back. Then she pulled her arm out from under her chest – hellfires that hurt – and adjusted herself so that she was balanced. She had done it. She wasn't sure how, and she knew she looked ridiculous – and the horse was now stained with quite a bit of red – but she had done it. Now to see if this horse could do as promised, and get her to help.

They rode for what felt like hundreds of candlemarks; Eothen lost consciousness from pain, from blood loss, more than once. Aladrian had said he could block her pain, and he did – a lot of it. But not all. She was impressed, though; he was right, this ride was so much smoother than Orin – and Orin had a very smooth gait – she barely noticed they were moving. But soon enough and an eternity later, Aladrian – she had started calling him by his name in her head, and not just 'crazy white horse' – came to a stop. He did so slowly, so that she would not be jostled, but he came to a stop. She opened her eyes; they were at some sort of guard post, it appeared. There were people around, walking up to Aladrian as if crazy white horses carrying semi-conscious girls across their rumps was something they saw every day, and they appeared to be talking; she couldn't really hear them, though. There was water running in her head, it seemed, rushing loudly around inside her brain and she couldn't hear anything else; and then she didn't know anything else, either.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Special thanks to Tantris and Raelynn Daria Mayne for use of their characters Ragnar and Kyminn/Cellen respectively. They did give me permission to use them.**

 **Chapter five**

The light was so bright. Too bright. She tried to tell someone to please stop shining it on her face, but it didn't seem that anyone could hear her. She could hear someone moaning; it sounded very loud, and very close by, and she had a disturbing feeling she was the one making the sound. It didn't sound quite like her voice, but she was pretty sure she was doing it. She tried to stop, she really did; but it didn't seem she was in terrifically solid control of her own body or behavior at the moment. Everything hurt. Her toes, her legs, her arms, even her hair hurt. She opened her eyes, though; she didn't know where she was, and she wanted to find out. She was a stubborn woman, she didn't like having no control over what was happening to her, much less did she enjoy not having control over her own behavior. She needed to know where she was and what was going on.

She wished she had been born somewhat less stubborn. One of those people who just went with the flow, didn't worry about things like where they were and what was going on and was perfectly happy to just sleep. She was immediately blinded by what seemed like an impossibly bright light; it took her a moment to realize that it was actually quite dim in this hall, and the only light near her was a single candle on a stand that just happened to be right next to her head. When she opened her eyes, she was looking right at it, since her head happened to be turned that way; since she had not, in fact, opened her eyes in just over a sennight, it was very bright to her still-concussed brain. She turned her head so it was straight, and was almost exhausted by just that little bit of effort; but she needed to see what was going on.

She struggled to get her elbows underneath her and pushed herself up; she nearly blacked out from pain. This nearly blacking out thing needed to stop, and fast. She was tougher than that, right? When she was sure she was no longer going to black out and fall back down, she opened her eyes. Much to her surprise, there was not a stump where her right leg should be; her right leg was actually there. Swollen, discolored, and whether or not she would be able to walk again was still in question, but it was there. The knife had clearly been removed, along with the arrow, and those wounds were stitched. Her lacerations as well, had all been stitched. There was a bandage around her left hand where her fifth finger was no longer present, and that stupid pike wound – well, it was open again, and packed with bandage material. She wondered whether or not she'd ever be free of that wound; she doubted it. She had seen a multitude of chirurgeons and none of them had been able to make it stay completely healed. The tooth that had been loose – well, sure enough, it was gone, but her nose was straight again. It hurt, and she was pretty sure her face was a mess, but it was straight.

That was about as much strength as she had for one day, so she eased herself back down onto the pillow. She wished she could roll onto her side, but she wasn't sure she should roll onto her surprisingly attached right leg, and wasn't sure she wanted to drag that leg over top the left to sleep on that one, so back on her back it was.

 _:Good morning.:_ said that voice in her head – Aladrian? He apparently was not just some strange fever-dream, then. _Sheka_.

 _:Hello.:_ she thought as hard as she could in the direction of that voice. She didn't know how to Mindspeak, but she was sure that if she started talking out loud to someone not anywhere near her, they would sedate her for being insane.

 _:You have been out for a fortnight.:_ said Aladrian. _:They weren't sure you would live, but I knew you would. The leg was touch and go, you're right; it is a miracle that it's still attached. I don't know how well it will function. But you will be able to walk; perhaps not run, but walk.:_

Well that was something, she supposed. She wasn't thrilled with the idea that she'd never be able to move again the way she was used to, but it was better than having no leg at all. But she was out for a whole fortnight? She knew she'd been out, but she thought a sennight, maximum.

 _:It will be a long recovery.:_ said Aladrian. _:Luckily, the guardpost here is well provisioned and we will be able to stay in comfort until you are ready to ride to Haven.:_

Haven? Where was Haven? For that matter, where were they now?

 _:Valdemar.:_ said Aladrian. _:Haven is in Valdemar, it's where all the Heralds train. For now, we are in Karse. Just north of the Jkathan border, you were bleeding too much to go any farther.:_

A Herald? What was a Herald, and who said she wanted to be one? And all the way to _Valdemar_?

 _:You are my Chosen.:_ said Aladrian. _:I am your Companion. Of course you will be a Herald. It's an honor, yet. Not what it used to be, but still an honor.:_

Well, Aladrian said her recovery was going to take awhile, so she had a while to figure out whether or not she wanted to be this Herald thing. Or even what it was. Valdemar, though? It was cold there, she'd heard, in the winter.

 _:Go.:_ said a new voice in her head. This one was female, and it just about made Eothen jump up off her cot, but the slightest jump reminded her that there was no way that was happening. _:Go, you'll like it there. It will give you purpose.:_

Who was that? It was bad enough that she had a crazy talking horse in her head, now some unidentifiable woman? She looked around, thinking maybe one of the other patients, one of the chirurgeons, anyone had said it; but sure enough, the voice was in her head. She was losing her mind. She had to be losing her mind. Maybe it was the medication. That had to be it; she was certain that the chirurgeons had filled her belly with pain medication, how else would she have slept through them stitching her leg back together, never mind the hundreds of other lacerations. They were known to cause hallucinations; hellfires, loss of blood could cause hallucinations. Maybe Aladrian was some elaborate hoax after all.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Aladrian.

Okay, maybe Aladrian wasn't a hoax, but this new voice…..one that didn't appear to even belong to a body, human or equine or anywhere in between…had to be a hallucination. Right? Right? Right. Voices didn't just appear in one's head. That was impossible. That was crazy. She closed her eyes and gave it no more thought; she allowed herself to drift back to sleep. When she woke again, with any luck, there would be no more voices in her head telling her where to go or who to be – or anything at all.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Aladrian.

Well, she supposed he could stay. She felt a vague sense of amusement that she decided must be coming from him, except for the decidedly female feel to it…..and went to sleep. She woke again when the chirurgeon was at her bed poking and prodding at her injuries; she cried out as she woke.

"Why didn't you wake me first, and give me some medicine for the pain you knew you were going to cause?" she asked, sounding much angrier than she had any right to feel. After all, pain or no pain, she would be dead without these people, but she couldn't help it. It hurt.

"I'm sorry, miss," said the chirurgeon. "I truly am. But we've been out of pain blockers for a moon. The Crown keeps promising to send them, and I'm actually quite sure they do; but the bandits, you see. The bandits, they come out and steal the medicine, killing anyone who happens to be transporting. There aren't enough guards to send along just to guard medicines; they are busy fighting the rebellions. I'm sorry, miss."

No pain medicine for a moon? But she'd only been there for a fortnight. And she'd slept through their treatments right up until now….

"I didn't realize that whatever had been keeping you asleep had worn off," said the chirurgeon. "It was the strangest thing; anyone else, sleeping through that, we would've assumed them brain-gone, and not treated you further. But your horse, see….your horse insisted that you would wake. He insisted that we treat you. So we did. But it's going to be quite a bit more painful from here on, miss, since you're not asleep and I have nothing to help you with that. I'm sorry."

Something had been _keeping_ her asleep? What? It must have been Aladrian. But then, why would he have stopped?

 _:It wasn't me.:_ said Aladrian. _:I do not have that ability.:_

Then who? Aladrian wasn't answering that question; she got a sense of smug amusement from him instead. She was annoyed; if there was some invisible force messing with her head, she wanted to know what it was. But that was of no matter, at the moment; she wished it would come back, because the treatments the chirurgeon was performing were painful enough to send her right out of her skull. He had secured her to the bed so that she could not move; he removed the bandages from her old pike wound and picked up his knife.

"The reason this wound will not heal," he said, "is because it is badly infected at the base. The infection has never been treated; it is a miracle it has not yet claimed your life. The skin closes over it, because that's what skin does; but the base of the wound does not heal. It just continues to produce this infected fluid, which kills the underlying tissue, and eventually it explodes, tearing the skin open again. I aim to heal it, fully, before the infection kills you; but it will be quite painful."

Well that was something, she thought. At least it would finally heal, instead of continuing to reopen and cause her pain every few moons. But painful it was; the chirurgeon had to use his knife to cut away the dead tissue, and occasionally remove the skin which continued to attempt to close the wound ahead of the base tissue. It bled prolifically, and the smell was awful; it smelled as if something had died inside her belly, and she supposed something had. The chirurgeon packed the hole with dressing material soaked in alcohol to kill the infection; it burned horribly, but the burn faded as the alcohol dried. The chirurgeon was very careful to change the dressing before it dried completely, or else pulling the dry dressing off of her raw flesh would cause even more pain, as it would stick.

He had to perform the same treatments on her leg; he explained that like her belly, the skin around her carefully-reattached leg would grow faster than the muscle beneath, which would cause infection to develop along that muscle. He said whatever it was that caused infection needed to be completely cleaned out, despite no one really knowing what it was, and the wound kept open until it could heal from the bottom up.

"How is it that no other chirurgeon I've seen for this pike wound has known how to treat it properly?" she asked him one day.

"My ideas are a little bit unorthodox," said the chirurgeon, Hexen was his name. "There have always been chirurgeons and healers in my family, though; one of my ancestors was the son of an animal healer named Kyminn, who had been seriously injured in his service to Valdemar – that's where they are from, my family – and so he spent many years researching various medical theories. His youngest son, Cellen, had a grandson who married the great-granddaughter of a man who had once been a warrior for the northern tribes, I think his name was Ragnar - but was captured and then swore allegiance to his captors, the Valdemarans; he passed along to his children the traditions and healing practices of his people. Some of them were quite different, and so all of it was passed down to me."

"Interesting. You sure know a lot about your family history. So you're from Valdemar?" asked Eothen.

"My family is. My mother was born there," said Hexen. "But she fell in love with a Karsite priest, and so here I am in Karse. And yes, family history is something of a hobby of mine."

"What do you know of Valdemar, then?" Eothen asked.

"I know that their government is more stable than most, these days," said Hexen. "Rethwellan has followed Jkatha and essentially fallen apart, although there is a small area around the Rethwellan capital that is stable and well defended. Hardorn has gone the way of Jkatha – chaos. Karse has more or less split into individual cities that rule themselves, but it has remained relatively peaceful – we credit Vkandis for that. But Valdemar, while they have more banditry than they have in the past, still has a functional government and the country is holding."

Well, that certainly sounded promising. She could hunt bandits, but not get caught up in a battle with multiple armies, all fighting each other, and no order whatsoever.

"What do you suppose caused this mess?" asked Eothen. "I mean, these countries, these governments, they've stood for as long as anyone can remember. But all of a sudden it seems, they are all falling apart, one by one; why? And why now?"

"I don't rightly know," said Hexen. "I think for some, the rulers became complacent, and stopped being interested in the needs of the people; the people decided to take matters into their own hands, but of course, they couldn't agree on anything. So they fight, and there isn't anyone left strong enough to sort it out."

"That's true," said Eothen. "They say the only thing you know for sure about having more than one person in a room is that they won't agree."

"Quite right," said Hexen. "I know I've seen plenty of results of that, and would be happy to not see it again. That's what happened in Rethwellan, anyway; and I think Seejay and Jkatha, too. Hardorn, and Haighlei, their ruling class started taking more and more of the wealth from the people, and the people started to starve. They were desperate and poor, and had nothing to lose; so they destroyed the rulers, and they are left with the same result – chaos. But Valdemar, they have held together, mostly, and by whatever magic those white horses you ride possess. So I guess you're going to go become part of their stability."

"I guess," said Eothen. "I don't know why. I've never been to Valdemar, I've never even been to Karse until now. Only Jkatha and a little tip of Rethwellan. I think my parents took us into Seejay once, when we were children, but I don't remember so it doesn't count."

"One of the things that northern ancestor passed down was that we often don't know where our destiny will take us," said Hexen. "We just have to have faith that it will take us where we need to go."

"Easy for you to say," said Eothen. "You are a chirurgeon – all you have to do is go where the fighting is, and there will be work for you. I'm never going to walk the same again, I can't rejoin a mercenary troupe. It's all I know how to do."

"That white horse of yours, he knows more than you think," said Hexen.

"How is that?" asked Eothen. "He's a horse."

"He's a Companion," said Hexen. "They're a bit different from horses. If you'd been riding your old horse, would you have made it here?"

"Well, no," said Eothen. "I suppose not."

"Of course you wouldn't have," said Hexen. "I don't know how he made it, even, and I'm familiar with their magic. But he's got a plan, I know it. You just sit tight and have faith, he'll take you where you need to be."

 _:Finally, someone with some sense around here.:_ said Aladrian.

Magic isn't real, thought Eothen in Aladrian's direction.

 _:Then what of this talking into each other's heads?:_ asked Aladrian.

Hmph.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter six**

Over the next two moons, Eothen worked hard recuperating from her wounds. Her joints were stiff both due to the scar tissue she had developed as well as the time she had been forced to spend in bed; she wasn't able to walk by herself, since her right leg still wouldn't tolerate her full weight. But she also wasn't able to properly move her arms, and so needed help stretching them, strengthening them. Hexen was there through all of that time, helping her to stand, helping her to make her way to a privy – that was embarrassing, but then she realized that it wasn't like she had not functioned in that manner while unconscious – and helped her to regain the strength she needed to swing her sword, string her bow, even put her clothing on. Over those moons, Eothen started to notice….Hexen had really lovely eyes, just blue enough to be not grey, just grey enough not to be blue…..and thick, dark hair. A ready smile, he was tall and strong…and pretty soon it was even more embarrassing when he had to help her get dressed, or worse, undressed.

 _:You should talk to him.:_ came that female voice in her head. The one she still couldn't figure out where it was coming from, although she had looked, and asked Aladrian – he was annoyingly silent on the subject – and it had butted itself into her head with some witty comment or another at the most unexpected moments.

I have talked to him, she thought back. She wondered why she was having a conversation with this voice in her head. She really must be losing her mind.

 _:No. You should talk to him. Or better yet, just kiss him.:_ said the voice.

Kiss him?! No way. No. Way. She was not going to go all googly eyed at some…..chirurgeon. Just because he was handsome? And friendly? And intelligent, with gentle hands, and beautiful eyes…..NO. No, she was not going to kiss him. But what if his lips were as soft as his hands…hellfires. Eothen was by no means inexperienced; there was a lot of sex in a mercenary troupe. People needed something that wasn't about death, when they got paid to deal in it regularly; they needed a reminder that they weren't dead, they needed a release for all the pent up feelings they got on that battlefield, and sometimes they needed actual relationships. But Eothen had always kept it casual; a roll in a tent here and there, but never too often with the same person, she didn't want to get tied down.

She could feel the amusement of whatever was behind this voice, though. And that only annoyed her further; how dare this disembodied voice think – could a voice think? – of intruding on her private life? It was already intruding on her sanity, and that was quite enough, thank you.

 _:Now, now, little one.:_ said the voice. _:No need to get angry. The lad likes you, too.:_

Wait, what? He liked her? Like, _like_ liked her? That wasn't possible. She wasn't a very nice person. She wasn't attractive at all, particularly not when she was covered in scars and wounds and had a leg that wouldn't work properly and hadn't even had a proper bath in…..oh, hellfires, she needed a bath.

 _:Aladrian:_ she thought carefully; Aladrian had been teaching her the basics of Mindspeech when she wasn't working on physical health. _:Do you think you could take me to a river or something? I need a bath. I smell.:_

 _:I thought you'd never ask.:_ said Aladrian.

Aladrian came to the door of the infirmary and laid down on the ground. Eothen hobbled her way over to him and was able to lift her not-fully-functional leg over his back. He rose to his feet and started ambling over towards the river; when they arrived, he didn't stop for her to get off, he just walked right in.

"Wait, can you swim?" asked Eothen. Stupid question.

 _:Stupid question.:_ answered Aladrian. _:Orin can swim, and he's just a horse. I am a Companion. I can do many things.:_

She still wasn't at all clear on what, exactly, a Companion was.

 _:That's by design.:_ said Aladrian. _:Suffice it to say that I look like a horse, but I am not. I am a person as much as you are.:_

 _:He's being evasive, isn't he?:_ said the female voice. _:Companions like to be mysterious. Well, I was once sworn to secrecy not to reveal any of their secrets, but I think that promise can be broken now. They are like spirits n horse form. They have a kind of magic that no one but they understand. And that is all I can say, promise or no.:_

Eothen wished this voice would also be more clear about who _she_ was. She had stopped looking around trying to find where it was coming from; she knew she wouldn't find anyone. She had stopped wondering if she was insane; either she was or she wasn't, only time would tell. Sometimes she answered the voice in her head; sometimes she didn't, it depended on how insane it made her feel, but it was impossible to ignore. For now, she didn't answer; she didn't really have anything to say in response, and plus, they were deep enough into the river that she floated right off Aladrian's back – and oh, goodness that felt amazing. She floated, weightless, and pain-free; she realized that this had been why Aladrian had walked into the river with her. If she had had to clamber off of him and hobble into the river herself, it would have been a chore, and painful besides; but this way was easy. She didn't have to do anything, just let the river support her weight while she worked the soap through her hair and onto her skin. When she was finished, she floated for awhile longer until she felt completely clean, and then Aladrian swam back over to her and she floated herself onto his back. They went back to the infirmary, where she was mortified to run into Hexen; she hadn't thought to bring a change of clothing, so she just had a linen sheet over her as she lay across Aladrian's back.

 _:Don't worry.:_ said the voice. _:He's seen it before. And besides, now's your chance.:_

Hellfires, that voice was never going to leave her alone, was it? She felt a wave of amusement from the 'direction' of this voice, and knew that it wouldn't.

"Hey," said Hexen. "You need any help?"

"No," said Eothen, and heard a faint grumbling of the voice in her head. "Aladrian will lie down for me, and then I can manage."

Except Aladrian, inexplicably, would not budge. He would not answer when she Mindspoke him to please lie down as he had before, either. He just stood there, rock steady, like any other horse without the intelligence to do what she asked. Hellfires.

"Apparently, he's not going to, though, so I suppose I do need help," she said.

"No problem," said Hexen. "I….kind of wish we'd gone to the river together."

She looked at him, startled; what did he mean, exactly?

"I've kind of gotten to know you since you've been here and been awake, and I'd like to spend more time with you," he said. "Away from the infirmary."

She just stared at him, dumbfounded, as he lifted her effortlessly off of Aladrian's back, and helped her back to her cot.

"Really?" she said, eloquent in her surprise.

Much to her surprise, Hexen did not share her hesitancy; he kissed her. Gently, but insistently, and with passion. She had never been kissed by anyone who was doing it for any reason other than to satisfy a need; in the mercenary camps, it wasn't about anything but a physical need, not about affection for the partner. It wasn't unkind, and anyone trying to force anyone else against their will was….dealt with, but it wasn't about affection. This was different. Very different. She felt tinglings she'd never felt before – well, not from a kiss, anyway. Hexen finished, and looked into her eyes; she looked back, surprised, but determined not to blow it. She smiled, but her throat was closed up; she was mortified that she couldn't say a word.

 _:No words are necessary.:_ said the voice. _:Kiss him again.:_

Every now and then the voice had a point, so she did as she was told.

Eothen spent the next moon recovering her strength and healing her wounds until she could walk more or less normally, but Aladrian had been right – she could no longer run. The leg itself had been saved, but not all of the muscle could be, and so her leg did not quite bend right or withstand the impact for running. She passed her days helping out in the infirmary, working with her weapons to regain her skill and strength, and spending time with Hexen. She was starting to get comfortable with her routine, and had entirely forgotten that she was supposed to be going to Valdemar to become whatever this 'Herald' thing was. Until Aladrian reminded her.

 _:It's time to go.:_ he said one morning while they were down by the river and she was done with her bath.

"Go?" she exclaimed. "Go where? Why? Why can't we just stay here?"

 _:You are needed elsewhere.:_ said Aladrian.

"What if I don't want to be a Herald?" she yelled. "It's not like you ever asked me. I might be perfectly happy here, helping Hexen. How would you know?"

 _:Are you happy here?:_ said Aladrian. _:Being just a helpful nursemaid? You are not trained in healing. You are not needed here. You are just comfortable.:_

"And what's wrong with that?" yelled Eothen. "What's wrong with an ordinary life, with just being comfortable?"

 _:That is not why you left your family.:_ said Aladrian. _:If you were happy having an ordinary life, being comfortable, making no difference in the world, you would have stayed with them. You didn't. You left. You then left the mercenary troupe because you didn't feel like it was accomplishing anything, just fighting whoever happened to be there. Are you saying those reasons are no longer there?:_

Hellfires. He ws right. Eothen didn't want to go – she didn't want to leave Hexen, she'd fallen more than a little bit in love with him, and she thought him with her as well – but Aladrian was right. She knew she would never be happy staying here bandaging wounds for the rest of her life, even if it meant staying with Hexen. She would resent him, eventually, because she needed more out of her life than to be some man's assistant. But Valdemar was so far away…..

 _:Go, little one.:_ said the voice. _:You will like it there. You will find your purpose. You will be happy.:_

She still had not figured out what this voice was or where it was coming from. She had almost stopped wondering; sometimes she 'answered', sometimes she didn't. Sometimes she paid attention, sometimes she didn't. But it was times like this, when the voice was actively telling her what to do, that she found it the most disturbing. Why should she follow the advice of some faceless voice in her head? But she had already decided that as much as she didn't want to admit it, Aladrian was right; she should go. So with a heavy heart, she got dressed and prepared to go tell Hexen.

He was sitting outside the infirmary when she arrived, sharpening one of his surgical knives. This was one of the larger ones he used to amputate a limb that could not be saved; she was once again glad that he hadn't had to use it on hers. He smiled as he saw her walk up, but it faded when he saw the look on her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I have to go to Valdemar," she said. "Aladrian says it's time to go, so I can be one of those Herald things, whatever they are."

"I was expecting that," said Hexen. "I'm surprised he waited this long; usually, the moment the newly Chosen is stable enough to travel, the Companion hauls them off to Haven."

"Really?" said Eothen. "I don't understand why there are so many of these people just willing to drop everything and hare off to parts unknown for a pretty horse."

 _:I am NOT a horse.:_ said Aladrian. _:But I am pretty.:_

 _:You are a horse.:_ said Eothen. _:You're just also…..whatever else you are.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ said Aladrian.

"In Valdemar, it's considered quite an honor," said Hexen. "Most schoolchildren still grow up daydreaming that one day they will be Chosen, even now. I understand that there used to be more Heralds than there are now; now, they are rare enough that citizens in the more distant villages might not even ever see a Herald, but it's still a fantasy of every child."

"Wow," said Eothen. "And here I am, never even having heard of such a thing, and one just shows up to get me."

"You're very special," smiled Hexen. "Special enough, in fact, that if you'll have me, I'd like to come with you."

"You would?" Eothen was eloquent in her surprise as ever.

"Of course," said Hexen. "I think we make a good match, and I'd like to come with you. I can get a job as a chirurgeon in Haven, and it would be nice to see my family again, as well. What do you say?"

Eothen did not say anything. At least not out loud with words. When she was done 'telling' him exactly how she felt about him coming with her, it was time to discuss exactly how that could work.

"Well, Aladrian there can outpace any horse, but I wonder, would you be willing to hold up your speed a bit to allow me to travel with you?" Hexen asked Aladrian directly. Aladrian nodded his head and winked. "Now all I need is a horse. I don't suppose you could help with that, though."

"He can't, but I can," said Eothen. "Did you forget, I still have Orin? As well as my mares?"

"I did, actually," said Hexen. "But you said yourself, Orin won't let anyone ride him but you."

"Well, I'll see if he'll make an exception if I ask him really really nicely, and if not – the mares will," Eothen said.

 _:I believe I can help with that.:_ said the voice. What?! This voice was now going to help talk to her horse?! This was getting ridiculous. If Hexen had not been standing right there, she would have confronted – how do you confront something that isn't actually there?

They walked over to the guardpost stables where her horses had been kept. Since this was the middle of the day, the horses were all out in the field. She whistled for Orin, who came galloping up to the fence; apparently, he had missed her. She missed him too, but wasn't quite prepared for the fact that he leapt over the fence and began to prance around in front of her. She laughed; he really had missed her.

"I think I'm going to have to burn off some of his energy before we try anything," she said, laughing. So she said a few calming words in her own language to him and he stood for a moment. She climbed up onto his back bareback – in the days before her injury, she would have jumped – and urged him to gallop. He didn't require much encouragement, and soon they were racing around the camp, resting guards and scouts looking up in surprise as they passed. She supposed if she were planning to stay, she might get into quite a bit of trouble for this, but it was too late now to worry about that. When she had ran all the rambunctiousness out of him, they returned to where Hexen was waiting; he was grinning at her ear to ear. Even Aladrian looked like he had enjoyed the show.

 _:Nothing like a gallop on the back of a Shin'a'in stallion, is there.:_ said the voice. Now that was interesting, Eothen thought. How would this voice know?

"That was fantastic," said Hexen. "I love your face riding like that, you look so happy!"

Eothen grinned; the voice – and Hexen – were right. A good gallop on the back of a Shin'a'in stallion was an amazing thing. Aladrian was wonderful – incredibly fast, and smoother than any horse had a right to be – but that was because he was not, in fact, a horse. It wasn't the same thing. It wasn't wild.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Aladrian.

 _:Sorry.:_ said Eothen. But she wasn't.

Eothen led Orin up to Hexen – and Orin put his ears back and bared his teeth. Eothen held him still and did not allow him to back away, but Orin refused to relax. She was about to give up, but she felt something stir next to her, a kind of breeze – and Orin seemed to be listening to something that she couldn't see. It was the strangest feeling, the sense that _someone_ was standing right next to her, talking to her horse, when there was no one there. Orin started to relax, and closed his lips; his ears came up, and he stopped fighting Eothen's grip. Pretty soon he was completely relaxed, and Eothen asked Hexen to reach out his hand; he did, somewhat hesitantly, and Eothen handed Orin's reigns to him. Orin argued for a moment, but then settled; Hexen was able to place a saddle on his back and mount. He rode around a bit with Eothen leading – and then she let go. Orin did not fight Hexen any further; he had a new master. And it was time to go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter seven**

They traveled for two moons to get to Valdemar. They encountered bandits along the way, and saw battles from a distance; but Aladrian had a way of knowing where the battles would be, so they avoided becoming entangled in them. Eothen found she enjoyed the traveling; they woke at dawn every morning, and she made breakfast while Hexen loaded their mounts. The mares carried what few belongings they had, while Orin and Aladrian carried only their weaponry; but even so, they all had to be packed up every morning and unloaded every night. They ate a quick breakfast and cleaned up their camp and were off; they stopped around midday to rest and water the horses and eat a small luncheon, and then continued riding until just before dusk. Again, Hexen unloaded the horses and brushed them down while Eothen prepared and cooked whatever they had hunted for their dinner. They traveled quickly, but not at a hard pace; they had a long way to go. They had to cross all of Karse as well as half of Valdemar to get to Haven, and it was late summer.

"I could get used to this," said Hexen one evening.

"Get used to what exactly, smelling like horses all day, never sleeping with a roof over our heads, eating nothing but what we can hunt for every single meal?" joked Eothen.

"Spending all of my time with just you, and no one else," said Hexen.

"That does sound rather lovely, doesn't it," agreed Eothen.

They didn't do a lot of sleeping that night. In fact, they spent a good portion of their days sleeping in the saddle, because they spent an inordinate number of nights not sleeping. But the journey was fairly uneventful; they enjoyed seeing the different regions they passed through, they enjoyed the little towns they stopped in and the rare infusion of bread and vegetables into their diet. But mostly, they enjoyed each other. Eothen was a loner by nature; she didn't make friends easily, and so she wasn't interested in the people she met along the way. Hexen had had his fill of people, having taken care of hundreds of them for as long as he could remember in his time serving as chirurgeon. He was enjoying the break. When they crossed the border into Valdemar, though, there was a palpable change; Karse had been relatively peaceful in comparison to Jkatha and Rethwellan, but Valdemar was more peaceful than that. Karse was still beset by bandits; in Valdemar, they didn't encounter a single one. Aladrian was happier, and picked up the pace a bit; he was excited to be home.

Even Hexen was excited; he had left his family several years past, and was really looking forward to seeing them again. But Eothen was nervous. She had left her family, but from Hexen's descriptions, Haven was a huge city; she had never lived in a city. She had lived on the road with her family until she left to join the mercenary troupe, and then on the road with them – and on the rare occasion that they returned to the stronghold instead of taking winter jobs, she lived in her tiny hut there. But never a city. Her troupe had been the largest population she'd ever lived among, and they were maybe three hundred people. Haven was a city of thousands; what did that even look like? What did it sound like? How would she tolerate it? Could she?

 _:It takes awhile to get used to, that's sure.:_ said the voice. _:But you will get used to it. You will even learn to like it. I did.:_

The voice lived in Haven? Well, that clarified…..nothing. If it lived in Haven, how had it found her in Karse? Maybe she really was insane…..Eothen couldn't see any possible alternative. This voice must be something she was creating in her own mind; she had heard stories of people so mentally ill they actually demonstrated two entirely separate personalities. Maybe this was how it started, some unidentifiable voice in their heads….

 _:You are not insane.:_ said Aladrian. _:I would know if you were, and I say you are not.:_

 _:Then what is this voice?:_ she asked him.

 _:I have been forbidden to tell you.:_ he answered.

Now that was interesting. A Companion, forbidden to tell his own Herald something? By whom? From everything Aladrian and Hexen had told her, a Companion was something of a law unto himself – they could not be compelled to do anything they did not want to do, and they could not be forbidden to share anything with their Chosen if they wanted to share it.

 _:By whom?:_ she asked insistently. _:And how is that possible?:_

Aladrian was frustratingly silent and refused to answer. Eothen sighed. She was getting tired of this; this voice had started talking to her shortly after Aladrian had Chosen her. That was moons ago, and she wasn't one bit closer to figuring out who it was than she had been the first time she heard it. Maybe it had something to do with Aladrian Choosing her; maybe Aladrian was the one with more than one personality.

 _:I am not.:_ he said.

 _:Hmph.:_ she replied.

They arrived at the outskirts of Haven, and Eothen was terrified. This city was huge; how was she ever going to adjust to living with this number of people? And it wasn't very pretty, either; the buildings they passed were run down, many were falling apart entirely. The people they saw were running around in clothing that looked more like rags, and the smell was horrific; why would she ever want to live here?!

 _:These are the outskirts.:_ said Aladrian. _:I realize it isn't attractive, but we did come in through the tannery district; that is what you smell. The people….yes, this is the poor end of town. No one lives near the tanneries if they can afford to do otherwise. I should have taken you around to another gate in order to get to the Collegia, but this was the direction we were coming from and I didn't want to take more time.:_

Well, alright…Eothen withheld judgment on the entire city, but wasn't exactly excited. She had seen poverty before, of course, and she realized that every city had some. And tanneries stank everywhere. As they continued through the city, she noticed that the buildings became progressively larger and more well-kept; they all looked old, but they were starting to have paper windows, and then actual glass; the thatched rooves became tile, the mud brick became stucco and then brick and then stone. The streets no longer were covered in dirt or trash, they were paved, and the houses were starting to have yards and flower boxes. The smell went from being tanneries and sewage to flowers and baking bread; the people on the street went from wearing rags to wearing clothing that was identifiable as such to being actual gowns and suits.

The roads, though, were winding; she was lost from the moment they took their first turn. There was no way she would ever be able to find her own way out of the city, and that was making her feel quite trapped.

 _:Don't worry.:_ said Aladrian. _:You will learn your way soon enough. But the roads are winding on purpose, for defense; Haven was designed to be defensive. Any army looking to invade would have to work very hard to make it to the Palace. Which is one of the reasons that it still stands, when Crown City, for example, does not.:_

Well that was certainly true. She couldn't imagine the Fire Eagles being at all successful trying to invade this city. She had just started to become accustomed to the buildings and the people when they arrived at another gate; she hadn't even seen the wall coming.

 _:This is the wall that guards specifically the Palace and the Collegia. This is where you'll spend most of your time.:_ explained Aladrian.

"Aladrian," said one of the guards. "You've been gone a long time, we thought maybe you weren't going to make it back."

Aladrian snorted at the guard but accepted the scratch behind the ear that was offered.

"Found your Chosen, I see?" she said. "Well, off with you; I'm sure you have plenty of things to do to get her settled."

Aladrian nodded, and the gate was opened. Eothen had been watching the guards, noticing that they were evenly spaced and while all of them had noticed Aladrian's approach, none but the most immediate to him had moved to greet him. She was impressed by their focus; in her experience, in a city as peaceful as Haven appeared to be, guards would drop their focus to note the arrival of someone they knew, in particular, but also the arrival of anyone appearing to be friendly. Aladrian passed through the gate – and Eothen was shocked.

On the other side of the gate were fountains, gardens, trees – it was beautiful. The building directly ahead of them was obviously the Palace; it was old, that was clear, but it was well-kept. There were people walking around in the front obviously on a mission to do something specific, but no one was hurrying; there were people wearing blue uniforms, light green uniforms, brick red, grey – and then there were people wearing regular clothing. There were people wearing scarlet, bright green, and white uniforms as well; she assumed they likely designated different positions, but wasn't sure exactly what.

 _:The grey uniforms are what you will soon be wearing, until you graduate to full Herald; then you will wear the white.:_ explained Aladrian. _:The Bardic students wear brick red, the full Bards wear scarlet; the Healer students wear light green, and the full Healers wear the brighter shade. There aren't very many of those, anymore, sadly. The people wearing blue uniforms are students, but not of any of the particular Collegia; they are often younger sons of nobility, or children of poorer families who are particularly gifted in one discipline or another. Most of them will join the guard when they come of age. Obviously, the people wearing regular clothing are regular people – nobles, to be sure, but regular people.:_

What did that mean, Healers and Bards? She had known minstrels, for sure, and chirurgeons, but what was the difference between those and Healers and Bards?

 _:Oh, goodness.:_ said Aladrian. _:I forgot that you lived in a world without Gifts. You have Mindspeech, that is your Gift. Healers have a Gift that allows them to Heal with their minds; it used to be fairly prevalent, but as all Gifts, it is becoming more and more rare. No one knows why. Bards – well, you'll have to experience that for yourself. There are other Gifts as well, and you will be introduced to them in your training.:_

Well. She wasn't exactly sure how she felt about this. Aladrian walked past the Palace to the first of the three Collegia buildings; these grounds were truly enormous. The Palace itself was the largest building she had ever seen; it had a white marble façade, with columns and ornamentation and a balcony designed for the monarch to give audiences from; there were ornamental trees and gardens in front with a paved road up to the front entryway, where there were guards clearly waiting to greet and admit anyone wishing to enter. The wings of the palace went back for some distance, and there was a large courtyard in the middle; off to either side were huge gardens, and what appeared to be stables off to the left and other buildings she couldn't identify to the right; behind the Palace were the three Collegia, gigantic all on their own, the size of palaces of other countries she had seen.

Aladrian walked up to the first of the three Collegia and stopped in front of the entrance; one of the people dressed in grey came up and stood next to them.

"Heyla, miss," he said. "I'll take care of Aladrian here, and you and your mister can get settled – Jerek over there will take care of his horse, and – "

"Wait," said Eothen. "That is not going to work. Orin, you see, won't allow anyone but myself or Hexen to handle him, and do you really think I'm going to let one of you people I've never met take Aladrian?"

"It's ok," said Hexen. "They're Herald trainees – although, Jerek, she's right about Orin. I'll take care of Orin and make sure the rest get settled; Aladrian will be fine. You go with the Dean up there, my dear, and he will show you where you need to be; you'll be awhile, with him, and I'll come and find you for dinner. Ok?"

"Wait, you're not coming with me either?" said Eothen, suddenly terrified.

"You'll be fine," said Hexen.

She looked at him uncertainly but realized that she didn't have much choice. Everyone was waiting for her, and she was a grown woman; she'd fought battles, for crying out loud. Why was she afraid of a little old lady? So she dismounted, and refused to show any further fear.

 _:Good girl.:_ said the voice.

 _:I'll be watching you from afar.:_ said Aladrian. _:You'll be fine. I will see you tomorrow – I have some friends of my own I'd like to greet.:_

She got an image in her head of just exactly what kind of 'friends' Aladrian had in mind and exactly how he'd like to greet them and blushed; she'd forgotten that he was a stallion and had been away from any of his own kind for some time now. She reached for her packs, but it was too late – Aladrian was gone.

 _:They will be delivered to your room, have no worries.:_ Aladrian said. Her room? She had a room?

She walked up to the little old lady that Hexen had called the "Dean" and tried to appear confidant, but was woefully aware of her shaking hands and knocking knees.

"Heyla, youngling," she said with a smile. She was wearing the thickest glasses Eothen had ever seen. "My name is Herald Myika, I am the Dean of Herald's Collegium. Welcome to Haven. It isn't what it once was, but we try to keep it pleasant nonetheless. Now, come with me; I need to assess your knowledge and see who we should pair you with."

She followed Myika speechlessly down the halls; wide, empty halls with paintings of people she presumed long dead on the walls. Stands with plants on them at regular intervals, tapestries of winged horses and what were probably famous battles and warriors hung behind them. Most of the people in the paintings were wearing those white uniforms, but a few were wearing more unusual outfits; there was one of a dark-haired man wearing black priest-like robes who was holding an unusually large cat. There was one of a flamboyantly dressed man with a mask over half his face and a bird on his shoulder. But Eothen stopped short in front of a painting of a woman who looked strangely familiar; the woman was wearing leathers cut very similarly to her own, and she was standing next to a blonde woman wearing green robes; there were also birds in this painting, which she thought was incredibly strange. She noticed that the first woman had swords in her hands, and they looked similar to hers, but they couldn't be; they were probably just from a similar era.

"Come along, dear," said Myika. "We have a lot to discuss, and I'm sure you're tired from your journey."

Eothen stopped staring at the painting with the strangely familiar woman and hurried along after Myika. They came to a small office with walls covered in bookcases, full of books, with more books stacked on the floor in front of the bookcases and a desk covered in papers. Myika sat at the desk and motioned for Eothen to close the door and sit at the chair opposite. Eothen did so, and the interrogation began.

Myika discovered that Eothen was completely educated in her knowledge of field survival and geography, and at an acceptable level in mathematics; but she was not educated – or remotely interested in – adjudication or courtly graces. She needed to be evaluated in the salle for her fighting skills, which Eothen thought would go fairly well, as well as equitation, but that would wait until tomorrow. She also needed to be trained in her Gift, as well as tested for any others she might have besides the Mindspeech.

"It used to be that the newly Chosen went to classes alongside the Bardic, Healer and Blues students," said Myika. "There used to be so many that we had to do it that way just to get everyone taught. But that was before my time, if you can believe it; now there aren't enough Gifted of any discipline to make a class, even if we had the time to wait for them to complete their education in that way. It's too bad, really; we need you Heralds so desperately, we can't wait for you to be trained as a class. So we do it like they did in the beginning; you will be paired with a Senior Herald and that Herald will be responsible for your training. When he or she deems you prepared, you will be given your Whites and sent out on your own. It is the same with the Bards and Healers, sadly."

Eothen still didn't know what a Bard was, but didn't really feel the need to ask just now. She was a bit overwhelmed; she was glad, though, that she wasn't going to have to sit in a classroom. She might not be able to walk or run like she used to, but sitting still for hours on end did not strike her as something she wanted to do, either. When she was through with the interview, Myika took her back down that hall, back past that disturbing painting and to a small room in a distant corridor.

"It used to be that these halls were full of students," she said. "It used to be that when newly Chosen came in, we had to worry over whether or not there were even enough rooms for them all, and now and then there wouldn't be. They'd have to bunk in one of the other Collegia, or even the stables at times. But now – if you don't like this room, well, there are plenty. In fact there are only two other students in this entire wing; we are talking about combining the Collegia into one building, but that thought is just depressing, so we haven't done it….yet."

"This room will be fine, but where will Hexen sleep?" she asked.

"Oh dear," said Myika. "We hadn't planned for that. Well, will this room do for tonight, dear, and we will look at alternative accommodations in the morning?"

"Sure," said Eothen. "I suppose."

"Good. Now, these are the baths for this hall." Myika showed her a large room at the end of the hall with giant copper tubs in them, obviously designed to be filled with water for the bath. "And now, I will take you to the kitchens, I'm sure you're hungry."

Eothen's stomach took that as an invitation to growl loudly, and she blushed, for probably the thousandth time that evening. Myika pretended not to notice, however. When they arrived at the kitchen, Hexen was already there.

"I filled you a plate," he said. "I figured you weren't too far behind me, and I know what you like, so come. Sit."

"I'll leave you be, then," said Myika. Eothen thanked her, and the old woman was off; shortly afterwards, Eothen realized she had no idea how to get back to her room.

"Are you settling in?" asked Hexen. "It's huge, I know. My folks say that it used to be bustling with students, and more still when grandda was alive. But it's home, for me, and I hope it can be for you as well."

"I have a room, but it's only got a single bed," she said. "Where will you sleep?"

"Honestly, you're going to be so busy for the next moon or so, we should probably have separate places. We will be getting in at completely different schedules, and you'll be so exhausted I don't want to wake you when you do sleep. Besides, I'd like to stay with my family for a bit and reconnect; let's let you get used to the place, and then we'll bother the staff for different accommodations. Ok?"

Eothen did not like the sound of that. She did not like the sound of that at all.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter eight**

Eothen was miserable. Not only was she so busy she didn't have time to breathe, she hadn't seen Hexen in a fortnight. She was pretty sure he had just abandoned her and she would never see him again, actually, and she was quite resentful about it. The one time she opened herself up to an actual relationship, and not just a dance on the bedroll, and he abandons her the minute they get to Haven. Where he grew up. Where he had family and friends that already knew him. She was angry with herself for being stupid enough to think that he was actually interested in her, a crippled ex-mercenary when he had so many perfectly sound, perfectly healthy –

"There you are," said Hexen, walking up behind her. "I've been trying to catch up with you for a sennight, you're a hard woman to find! How're you settling in?"

"You have?" Eothen asked stupidly. "Why didn't you just have a page show you where my room was?"

"I remember how busy the Herald trainees are in their first couple of moons," said Hexen. "I mean, you have more classes than you have time for, and trying to learn a new country, new customs, a new city all at the same time – I'd be surprised if you were still awake when you walked through your own door. I was trying to not wake you when you had that rare moment to sleep, I just kept trying to catch you in the dining hall, or in between classes. I kept missing you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel alone."

Well, now Eothen felt even worse. She had been busy; she was awakened by a page before dawn to go down and eat some breakfast she wasn't awake enough to recognize, then off to her adjudication classes, then the salle, then a quick rinse in a tub before lunch. After lunch was Gift lessons, followed by courtly graces and equitation; then another quick rinse, dinner, and then she met with her mentor to learn…..whatever he decided to teach her that day. Her classroom lessons were only going to be for another fortnight, and then she'd be sent off with her mentor – Alek – to her field training, which would last until he said she was done, and then – then she would do whatever it was that Heralds did. She still wasn't sure what that was, exactly. But it had to be less work than this.

"Well, you're here now," she said. "What are we going to do? I mean, you're right, I am asleep before I walk through my door at night but at the same time, we can't keep on like this. I got used to not sleeping alone, and I find I rather like it."

She blushed. She had never been one to discuss her emotions, but she couldn't help it; it slipped out.

"I'm going to talk to them about getting a room we can share," said Hexen. "I meant to do it earlier, but my family is huge, and they all wanted to show me this or that project they've been working on, plus there are a lot of people injured that need help. But I'm going to go right now, do you want to come or do you have a class you're going to?"

"I am on my way to weapons classes, actually," said Eothen. "I'd love to come with you, but – "

"But that is one class you never want to be late for," said Hexen with a smile. "I will be at your room tonight, with an answer one way or the other. Okay?"  
"Okay," said Eothen. "I'll see you then. It will be late."

"Of course it will," said Hexen. "That's part of the life of a trainee."

She smiled, and gave him a kiss. Then she had to be off to weapons training; she was already late, and she knew that was going to earn her an extra hard run at the pells. She didn't know why she had to be in weapons training in the first place; she had been a successful mercenary, she knew how to swing a sword.

 _:Always more to learn.:_ said the voice. _:Always. And it's that one skill you didn't take the time to learn, that's the one that's going to get you killed on the battlefield someday. Take the time to learn everything anyone will teach you, you'll stay alive just that bit longer.:_

She still hadn't figured out what that voice was. She'd actually almost forgotten it; it had been fairly silent since she arrived in Valdemar, she supposed it was trying to let her settle in, too. Or maybe she was just too exhausted for her imagination to summon it up. Whatever, it didn't matter. She had a class to get to, and sweat to be poured.

At the end of the day, Hexen was waiting for her outside her room, just as he had said he would be. He was sitting on the floor with his back up against the door, sleeping; she woke him, and they went into her room together.

"Good news," Hexen said yawning. "We don't get a room together."

"How is that good news?" Eothen asked.

"They said there wasn't much point, since you're going off on your field circuit in a fortnight and I am not allowed to go with you. But I did bring my bedroll. So I can sleep on your floor, and at least we'll be together. That's the good news. Best I could do, I'm sorry."

"You don't get to go with me?" she exclaimed. "But it's a whole year! At least! Ugh, why did I ever agree to do this Herald business…."

 _:It's not as if you had a choice.:_ said Aladrian. _:And I am worth the sacrifice.:_

 _:I don't know about that, horse.:_ she retorted.

 _:Hmph.:_ Aladrian said. But he was right, he was worth the sacrifice. Probably. Maybe.

"It's only a year. And you'll write, I'll write, and it'll be over before you know it," said Hexen. "You're going to be working so hard you'll hardly even notice."

"Well, I doubt that I could be working more than I am right now, and I doubt even more that I won't notice you aren't there," Eothen said.

"Oh, trust me, you'll be working hard," said Hexen. "My sister's a Herald. I haven't seen her since she left on field circuit. Ten years ago."

"Don't tell me that, that is not what I want to hear," said Eothen. "Now come here, this bed isn't that small."

And it wasn't.

 _:Heyla, youngling.:_ said the voice. Eothen started; she was getting tired of this. She had been sitting under a giant tree on the bank of the Terlei, minding her own business, enjoying her day off, and out of the blue here was this voice again. This voice that seemed to know who she was, but never said anything to her that she understood. It needed to stop, and stop now. Either she was insane, in which case she needed to be confined to a small dark room, or there was a ghost talking to her. Or something. She wasn't sure, but she was going to find out.

 _:WHO – WHAT – ARE YOU?!:_ she thought as hard as she could at what felt like the direction this voice was coming from. _:AND WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?!:_

She had the sensation that someone was chuckling. _:It's about time you show some gumption and ask me that.:_ said the voice.

 _:?!:_ Eothen couldn't even express her frustration in words; all she could manage was just a general wave of frustration, confusion and no little anger. This voice had been making her think she was insane all this time, and it was playing – a game?

 _:Now.:_ said the voice, _:in answer to your question. You have something that belonged to me.:_

"I am no thief!" said Eothen, ready to challenge this – whatever it was – to a duel to clear her name.

 _:No.:_ said the voice amusedly. _:No, you are not. You came by this thing quite honestly. In fact, I wanted you to have them. You were the only one in the family to show any promise at all.:_

"What in hellfires are you talking about?" Eothen spoke aloud; Mindspeech was still difficult for her.

 _:The swords.:_ said the voice. _:The swords. They were mine. I made them, I used them. I thank you for taking such care of them, but they were made to be used – not for decoration.:_

"Who are you?" asked Eothen, losing her patience.

 _:My dear, didn't they tell you who those swords belonged to?:_ asked the voice, sounding genuinely surprised.

"They told me stories of a legendary ancestor, but not one that actually makes sense. No one could have possibly done all that. Clearly the swords were used by someone who knew swordfighting, but that could be a lot of people," said Eothen.

 _:I assure you, I am – was – quite real.:_ said the voice. _:I was Taia shena Pretera'sedrin k'Treva, Captain of the Fire Eagles, Lord Martial of the Valdemaran army, Commander of the Allied Armies. Legendary warrior and mage. It is all true, although the stories leave out the good parts.:_

"What?" gasped Eothen. "That is not possible. They were just bedtime stories."

 _:How embarrassing, and yet appropriate, that I should become nothing more than a bedtime story for a child.:_ said the voice – Taia. _:Your great-grandfather's grandfather was my nephew, Kurien shena Pretera'sedrin. His mother was my younger sister, Andrien. I trained Kurien to fight, and he passed on what I taught him – as well as the swords – to whomever showed promise. You were the next in line.:_

"Why do you haunt me?" asked Eothen. "Why have you allowed me to believe myself insane all this time?"

 _:Dear child, I have not been trying to haunt you.:_ laughed Taia. _:I have been trying to help you. As for allowing you to believe yourself insane, I was testing your mettle. How long would it take for you to stand up to what you feared? Longer than I thought, but not as long as I feared. Good. You will need it.:_

"So you're saying I disappoint you?" said Eothen. "How many ghosts came and spoke into your head?"

 _:Plenty.:_ said Taia. _:Quite regularly, when I was a youngling. But you are right, that was a different world; in those days, it was well known that the Kal'enedral were visited by the leshya'e. It was unusual that I was, but I digress. Our people have lost so much of their history. Perhaps I should show you, rather than tell you.:_

Eothen was confused; how could this ghost show her anything at all? What was a Kal'enedral? She knew that the word 'leshya'e' meant spirits, but what, exactly, did that mean? Was Taia a leshya? And what was the purpose behind her visits? But she could feel something stirring; she didn't recognize it as magic, because those were just stories; but it was magic nonetheless. It was there, whether Eothen believed in it or not.

 _:Close your eyes, and prepare for the journey.:_ said Taia.

Suddenly, Eothen was not on the riverbank where she had stood before; she was in a war camp, although from the looks of it, it was quite old. She didn't recognize at all where she was, but something in the back of her mind told her it was 'home'.

 _:This was Urtho's Keep.:_ said Taia's voice. _:This is where the Great Mage held his stronghold against Ma'ar, the great evil one. In a moment, the war will be over; both mages will be dead.:_

Eothen watched as the Keep appeared to shake; the people around it scrambled and ran towards some destination only they could see. The Keep continued to shake, and then it collapsed in on itself, as if it were somehow being sucked into the ground and exploding all at the same time. Left in its footprint was a perfectly round crater. The walls of the crater were impossibly steep, and it was a long way down; when Eothen looked, at the bottom was a barren sheet of glass. No life could possibly survive there.

 _:The Kale'da'in, the ancestors of bout our people and the Tale'edras – the bird clans – are deciding what to do next.:_

Eothen was in a tent; she could hear the leaders of the Clans debate the good and evil merits of magic, and she could see that it was going to be a stalemate. Some Clans were adamantly against using magic at all, and others were just as adamant about using it to fix the damage done by the war that they had just fought. So they decided to split, and become two peoples; one would give up the use of magic for all time, and the other would use it as they said, to fix the damage done by the war. Suddenly there appeared a woman, with eyes made of stars –

 _:This is the Star Eyed Goddess. She is the Goddess of both our peoples, but she has been forgotten.:_ said Taia. _:She provided for us, protected us – but she also expected much from us. She would not help unless we first offered up absolutely everything we had to give. As you will see.:_

Eothen watched as the Goddess tasked the magic-users with cleansing the land, and gave them magics to provide them with safe homes –

 _:Vales. They were shielded from weather and intrusion. They were beautiful, but the Tale'edras worked hard to earn them.:_

Eothen had an image placed in her mind, of a shimmering border, a barrier around small villages with buildings in trees larger than she had ever seen. She felt the memory of the Vale being placed in her memories as if she herself had lived in one. She then watched as the Goddess turned to the leaders of the non-magic users and told them that they too would be given a homeland, but only at a steep price. They were tasked with protecting, at all costs, the remaining magic weapons Urtho had himself been too afraid to use; and so they would be provided with the land and the training to do so. But creating that land out of the glass crater left from the final battle of the war required their blood sacrifice, and Eothen watched as the leaders walked to the edge of the crater and as one jumped to their deaths. She was amazed that her people had begun by such sacrifice, and watched as the once dead and barren ground became alive with grassland, trees, rivers, flowers – and cliffs so steep that no one could descend them without considerable risk. She watched as those people flourished, trained as warriors, bred horses, and wandered the Plains – the Dhorisha Plains, meaning sacrifice – in honor of their pledge to defend the land.

She watched as some of those Clan members took oaths as Kal'enedral, a special kind of warrior given special training by ghosts – _leshya'e_ , as Taia had told her – and she watched as the Plains were opened to strange people in the attempt to avert the destruction of the world by something called the Mage Storms. She had another implanted memory of what that meant, and was amazed to learn that magic had not always been just stories. She watched as her people changed, magic no longer forbidden, their purpose no longer relevant, and their promises no longer remembered. Their warrior training, once fervent and committed, became half-hearted and uninspired; the _leshya'e_ no longer appeared, and the people no longer took oaths as Kal'enedral. Even the breeding of horses became more of a hobby; horses once bred for intelligence, stamina, and fighting ability became horses bred for appearance and sale value to an outsider population that remembered that Shin'a'in horses were to be highly valued, but didn't know exactly why.

The people who had once wandered the Plains in predictable patterns, with ranges and plans geared towards the defense of a land that no longer needed defending, now wandered without purpose. They forgot their history, forgot who they had been intended to be; indeed, with nothing left to guard, there was not much purpose for that history or those traditions. They became tinkerers, weavers, metalworkers – but nothing more. They forgot the Goddess that had given them so much, now that their promise had been fulfilled.

Eothen watched, then, as one night the ground of the Plains shook and buckled; great cracks opened in the earth, and the trees, tents and rivers that had been in the path of those cracks crashed to the glass floor beneath. Thousands of people were killed, and when it was over there were only a few scattered members of each Clan. The Plains themselves were no longer habitable, and so they left. This was the Catastrophe that she had heard whispered stories of, the event that had stolen the homeland of her people from them and led to them wandering the Outlander towns, offering services as whatever they could earn chit for doing, becoming the laughingstock of every town they passed through as the people believed them to be cheats and thieves rather than simple nomads trying to survive in a world where they had no home.

Eothen opened her eyes, back in the field where the journey had begun and was surprised to find herself weeping. Her people actually had once been a proud and powerful people, but that had all been swept away and they now believed themselves, even, to be nothing more than the useless wanderers the Outlanders said they were. And she had always been a little ashamed of her people, because as much as she had wanted to believe the stories were more than just stories – she had not really done so. Now she knew the truth; she knew from where they had fallen.

 _:Now perhaps you understand.:_ said Taia. _:But showing you your history has taken all the energy I had. I must recover, and you have much to consider. Think well on what I have shown you; much will depend on your contemplation.:_

Taia was gone, then, and Eothen felt a little bit empty, a little bit alone. She was overjoyed to find that not only had the legends of her people been true, but that she had been shown the truth of them personally; there could be no more doubt, at least not in her own mind. She wanted to know more; she wanted to learn more from this long-dead ancestor of hers. But what she really wanted was to return her people to their former glory. Or at the very least, to new glory.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter nine**

The day after Taia revealed herself to Eothen, it was time to leave for her field circuit. She had spent the afternoon packing, then repacking, then repacking again all the things she thought she would need; her weapons, of course, and she decided to take and use the swords Taia had made all those years ago. She also took her regular swords, just in case. She packed two sets of the grey uniforms she was assigned and one set of regular leathers, and then a set of winter gear and a heavy cloak; if this circuit was going to last an entire year, she needed her winter gear. A few days' worth of smallclothes and a shift to sleep in, the super-soft chirra fur she used as a towel or blanket. Her bedroll, a very small tent. Some candles and the flint to light them. By then her saddlebags were full, and Hexen was back from working in the infirmary.

"Well, it looks like you have everything you'll need," said Hexen. "Here, though, take some paper and ink; how else are you supposed to write me?"

"I was planning on buying the paper in villages," said Eothen. "But you're right, this is a better plan. I'm going to really miss you."

"You won't have time to miss me," said Hexen. "But I will miss you, too. The time will go by quicker than you think it will."

"Far to long to be without you," Eothen whined. She was unhappy with herself for being so emotional about their separation; she had always prided herself on being independent. But the words were coming out of her mouth without her having any prior warning of their existence. _Sheka._

 _:It is not a weakness to love someone, child.:_ said Taia.

She supposed not, but it sure felt like weakness. I mean, here she was, near crying over having to be away from Hexen for what, a year? Surely she could handle that.

 _:I never consented to being away from my lifebonded for a single day. In fact, we are still not separate beings.:_ said Taia. _:Do you think me weak?:_

Well, no. From everything Eothen knew about this ancestor of hers, there is no way she would describe her as 'weak'. But aside from that, what does 'lifebonded' mean?

 _:Oh, dear.:_ said Taia. _:Another thing that doesn't exist in your world anymore. A lifebond is basically two people sharing one soul. They cannot – literally cannot – live, one without the other. It is a bit like your bond with Aladrian, only between people. And neither one gets to do the Choosing. Generally.:_

Wait, what? One can't live without the other, and that was like her bond with Aladrian? How was she not aware of this limitation?

 _:I am a limitation?:_ asked Aladrian. He sounded genuinely hurt. _:I am your Companion. Of course I cannot live if you are killed, and yes, if I am killed you will soon follow. But I hardly think of that as a limitation. It is simply the price we both pay for being Chosen and Companion. I would not choose otherwise.:_

And Eothen realized, suddenly, that neither would she. She may have been fiercely independent prior to meeting Aladrian, but she had also been entirely alone. And had felt it. She was a little bit afraid of the vulnerability she was faced with by admitting her feelings for Hexen, but she had never run from anything that frightened her in her life. She wasn't about to start now.

 _:That's my girl.:_ said Taia.

Shut up, she thought at Taia. She felt a wave of amusement, and then withdrawal. She and Hexen spent the rest of the night saying goodbye, and not doing a lot of sleeping.

In the morning, just before dawn, Hexen walked with her out to the stable where she was supposed to meet Alek. It was a beautiful day; the sun was out, but it wasn't too hot, and there was just a bit of a breeze. If she hadn't been leaving Hexen, she would have thought it was a perfect day for a ride; then she was immediately angry with herself for being so melancholy over their impending year apart. It was only a year. She was being a child. Again. She really hated feeling this dependent on anyone, regardless of Taia's reassurance that it wasn't actually weakness.

They were waiting for her, Alek and his Companion, Kasara. Eothen panicked; she was sure he had said dawn!

"Did I misunderstand?" she asked. "I thought you said we would leave at dawn, I'm sorry if I'm late."

"No, no," said Alek. "I'm just perennially early. Take your time, get loaded up; there's no real rush."

Eothen rushed anyway. She loaded up her saddlebags across Aladrian's rump, and secured them as quickly as she could. She secured her bedroll behind the saddle and her weaponry as well, then turned to say goodbye to Hexen; this was the part she wasn't looking forward to, and had hoped for some privacy, but Alek was there and there was no getting around it. Aladrian, however, was most understanding; he surreptitiously took a small step so that he was standing in between Eothen and Alek's direct line of vision.

"Well, I guess this is it," she said lamely.

"It is," said Hexen. "Now kiss me and mount up, it's not going to get any easier standing here dreading it."

He was right, and she knew it. So she kissed him, hard, and then wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could. Without looking back again, she swung up on Aladrian's back.

"Let's go," she said to Alek. Alek looked at her a little surprised, but then must have heard something from Kasara – and they were off. This field circuit thing, whatever it was, had begun, and with it the bulk of her training. They rode mostly in silence through the winding streets of Haven; Eothen looked at it with new eyes. When she had arrived, she had seen it with the eyes of someone who had never seen that number of people in one place before in her life. Now, she had lived here for a fortnight; still not very long, but she was no longer awed by the sheer size of the city. And what she saw today was quite different from what she had seen on the way in.

She noted that the progression of wealthy to poor radiated from the Palace to the outskirts of the city; that had not changed since her arrival, of course. But what she had not seen was the separation of one from the other. There were walls of various strengths and made of various materials, according to the wealth of the level it was protecting, and people did not venture from one side of a wall to another; it was like there was an entirely different city in each 'layer'. She wondered how well a city could survive and function with this degree of separation; she knew that when there was this much division between different groups of people, resentments grew.

 _:You are correct.:_ said Aladrian. _:It is becoming a problem all over Valdemar; people no longer feel like they are citizens of the same country. That is the problem in other countries, as well, and you have seen the results of that. It is only through the work of the Heralds, who are the only people at this time who travel from one part of the country – or one layer of Haven – to another, that Valdemar stands at all. And it will only continue to do so if the Heralds continue to function.:_

 _:But there aren't enough of us.:_ said Eothen.

 _:You are correct there, as well.:_ said Aladrian. _:There used to be more, many more. But we Companions are not….as prolific as we once were; we don't know why. It isn't for lack of…..effort. And without more Companions, there cannot be more Heralds. It is a problem, and we do not know how to solve it.:_

 _:Huh…..:_ said Taia. _:That may well be the first time a Companion has ever admitted to not knowing something in history.:_

 _:How would you know?:_ Eothen thought at Taia. Mindspeaking a spirit seemed more difficult than Mindspeech with Aladrian; maybe that was the fact that she and Aladrian were bonded. Maybe it was because Taia was dead, and had been for a few hundred years.

 _:A little bit of both, actually.:_ said Taia. _:I can make it a bit easier, though.:_

Eothen felt a kind of 'bridge' between herself and the direction Taia seemed to be coming from.

 _:Better?:_ she asked.

 _:Yes.:_ said Eothen. _:Thank you.:_

 _:No problem.:_ said Taia. _:Now, you were wondering how I know anything about Companions, seeing as how I was never a Herald, right?:_

 _:Yes.:_ said Eothen.

 _:I was….rather insistent that they speak with me when I needed them to.:_ said Taia. Eothen got the impression that Taia was laughing. _:Mindspeech was one of my strongest Gifts – that's why I can still communicate with you – and I Mindspoke them. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to be able to, the first time.:_

Eothen chuckled at that; Alek looked back at her strangely. "Aladrian," she lied. "He's telling me stories of Companion games."

"Ah," said Alek. "They can be quite the pranksters, can't they? Kasara tells me that her foals have played 'hide and find' so much with their blankets that they can't actually remember where they are."

"They are quite the characters," agreed Eothen.

 _:I have been meaning to tell you something.:_ said Taia. Uh oh, thought Eothen, that didn't sound good.

 _:I asked Aladrian to lie to you.:_ said Taia. _:And he did.:_

 _:What?!:_ Eothen asked both of them.

 _:It was not a big lie.:_ said Aladrian. _:When I Chose you, your Mindspeech Gift opened, and that is when Taia appeared to me. She asked me to tell you I had been the one to keep your leg attached. But I do not actually have that particular Gift.:_

 _:Then…..who?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:I mentioned to you that my lifebonded and I are still together, even in the afterlife.:_ said Taia.

 _:Yes…..:_ said Eothen.

 _:My lifebonded, Whitestar, was a powerful Healer. She Healed your leg. First she kept it attached, and kept you from bleeding to death.:_ said Taia. _:Then she helped Hexen – no, he doesn't know he was helped, he just thinks his work was more effective than he thought it would be – to Heal it in the infirmary.:_

 _:Oh.:_ said Eothen with the eloquence that generally accompanied her shock.

 _:She wanted me to tell you hello.:_ said Taia.

 _:Oh.:_ said Eothen, still eloquent. _:Hello. And thank you.:_

 _:Her Mindspeech is not quite strong enough to communicate with the living; her Healing Gift is, and her Mage Gift, but not Mindspeech.:_ said Taia.

 _:Mage Gift?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:Those stories about magic weren't just stories.:_ said Taia. _:Mage Gift is what allowed me to show you what happened to our people. No one knows why it has disappeared; no one knows why the Gifts that do appear are less frequent and less powerful than they were in my day. What we do know is that you will need more than Gifts to keep this world together; you will need your wits and your courage, and more than a little help.:_

Oh good. So it was her job to keep the world together now? And how did the current state of the world as she knew it qualify as 'together' in the first place? How was she qualified to do that? She was only one person, a moderately talented fighter with a bad leg, and a Companion. He was certainly competent, but there was only the one of him! How could they possibly expect her to keep the world together?!

 _:The same way I was expected to do so in my day.:_ said Taia. _:By not knowing you're not supposed to be able to. It is not easy. But you will have help. You will have Aladrian. You will have myself, and Whitestar, to guide you. Alek is a capable teacher. And you might be surprised at what will show up along the way.:_

Well, wasn't that just great. A year ago, she had been a carefree mercenary, just earning her pay and trying to keep her skin on. She hadn't cared much for most of her comrades; they were fine people, she supposed, but she hadn't ever let herself get too close to any of them. There was too great a chance they'd be the next one buried. So she'd kept to herself, mostly; she'd had a few friends, like Rozem, but not many. When she left, she hadn't had much of a different perspective; she just wanted to make her way, make enough money to live on, and maybe see a bit of the world while she was at it. And then came the injury, and Aladrian, and then Hexen – and now here she was, a lovesick and awkward Herald trainee who didn't even have the first clue what that job entailed. And she was expected to keep the world together? She could barely keep herself together.

 _:One step at a time.:_ said Aladrian. _:One step at a time. First learn the job. Then we take it as it comes. There is no clear path; we will simply make the best decisions we can and go from there.:_

Well that was reassuring. No clear path. But she supposed she didn't have a lot of option; time was like that, it seemed. It just kept on moving, whether or not she had any idea what she was doing. One step at a time, one day at a time, one decision at a time – and before she knew it, she'd…she didn't know what she'd be doing. But when she left the mercenary camp, she knew this was not exactly what she'd had in mind, and yet here she was. So eventually, she'd be somewhere else. And it would make as much sense then as her current station made now.

Which was to say, no sense at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter ten**

Hexen was right; Eothen was working hard. She was working from the moment she woke up, which was usually well before dawn, to the moment her head hit the pillow, which was well after midnight. She was exhausted. She didn't know how she was expected to keep up this pace, and she was fairly sure she wasn't actually capable of doing so. She had fought military campaigns that were less exhausting than this; at least on a military campaign, they couldn't keep fighting after dark.

 _:My troops did.:_ said Taia. _:That was one of our best strategies – send in a small raiding group to create havoc in the enemy camp, take out as many as you can, get out before they woke up enough to be organized; and attack a different part of the camp every night, so they can't be really prepared. It was quite effective.:_

 _:Don't tell the Valdemarans that, they'll start doing it.:_ Eothen said.

 _:We used it when I was commanding them, too, not just the Fire Eagles. Don't tell me they've forgotten everything I've taught them!:_ Taia joked.

Eothen was busy hearing a case where a noble was accusing a farmer of allowing his sheep to graze on the noble's land. The sad part was, the noble technically owned the sheep, and took his payment for their 'use' in wool; whatever he didn't take was what the farmer had to live on. The noble also owned the land the farmer had built his home on, and the farmer had to pay rent out of that same income. The farmer admitted that yes, the sheep had wandered onto unauthorized land, but that was because the fence had broken. It hadn't been fixed because the farmer's son had been ill, and unable to repair it; the farmer could not shepherd the sheep and fix the fence at the same time, and the sheep had wandered out of his sight while he was fixing the fence.

What angered Eothen was the fact that according to the letter of the law, she had to rule in favor of the noble. But it wasn't fair. It wasn't at all fair. The farmer had no leg to stand on, and yet the noble was demanding – and she would have to award – an exorbitant fine for the unauthorized use of his land, which had done no actual damage and had caused no harm to anyone whatsoever. He was just abusing his power. And Eothen didn't see any choice but to help him, not if she was going to follow the law. She needed some advice.

"I would like to call a recess," she said. "We will reconvene in one candlemark, after we have had some time to eat."

She banged her gavel; Alek looked at her, confused, but didn't say anything. They went back to the room they shared at the inn to talk. They ordered food to be delivered to them, so they would not be disturbed.

"What's the problem?" asked Alek. "Looks like a pretty cut and dried case. Sad, but the law is clear."

"I know," said Eothen. "But I don't like it. This noble is just torturing the farmer, bleeding him dry of everything he has, just to abuse his own power. I don't like it, and I don't want to help him."

"What's your option?" asked Alek.

"That's why I called for a recess, so I could ask you if I had any," said Eothen. "Do I?"

"Why don't you want to follow the law?" asked Alek. "I mean, it's horrible that the farmer's son was sick, but was there really no one else who could have watched the sheep while he fixed the fence? His wife? Doesn't he have other children?"

"His wife was busy taking care of the sick son, minding the toddler daughter, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, minding the rest of the farm – no. There wasn't anyone else," said Eothen. She was getting really annoyed with Alek; wasn't he supposed to be on the side of fairness and justice, just like her?

"Well, then why didn't the farmer just leave the sheep penned until the fence was fixed?" asked Alek.

 _Sheka_. Eothen didn't have an answer for that one. But she was going to give it a try anyway.

"The broken fence was all the way on the other end of the field from the sheep pen," she said. "It would have likely taken the farmer half the day to get up there, fix the fence, then come back and let the sheep out." Lame, and she knew it.

"So he was lazy," said Alek.

"Hardly!" exclaimed Eothen. "I'm only guessing that it would have taken just half a day – it very well may have taken the entire day. The sheep can't be left in the pen for that long!"

"Quite right," said Alek, looking satisfied. "The farmer was stuck without option. It would have taken the entire day to fix that fence, not half of one; I was raised on a farm, and fence fixing can be tedious. There was no one to help him; the neighbors around here are kept too busy minding their own plots to be of help to each other. Is there any way you can see to fix that?"

"Why were you arguing with me, then?" asked Eothen, still annoyed.

"To make sure you were seeing all the arguments that the noble will put to you, and make sure you had a response for them," said Alek. "Now, do you have a solution?"

"No," said Eothen. "The law says it doesn't matter the circumstance, the farmer is responsible. It's not fair."

"You're right," said Alek. "It's not fair. But we are Heralds; we don't have to stick with the letter of the law. We can ad lib, a little bit, as long as we don't get crazy. Now, do you have any ideas that will satisfy the noble, not unduly punish the farmer and maybe prevent this from recurring?"

"Maybe the farmer should sell one of the lambs of the season, and the chit should go to the noble as payment for the violation," said Eothen. "That's money the farmer doesn't have yet, so he hasn't budgeted for it. And we could work out a plan so that all the farmers in the region rotate shepherding all the sheep together; they can brand them or something, so it's clear whose is whose, and that will free up the farmers to get other work done when it's not their turn."

"Excellent!" said Alek. "Now you're thinking like a Herald, and not just a judge. Good work."

They returned from their recess, and Eothen took up her place on the bench to make her ruling. She was a little nervous; she had watched Alek adjudicate a few trials, but this was the first time she would be doing it herself.

"Welcome back," she began. She was working on being able to say something other than 'oh' when she was nervous. "The law is clear; the noble owns the land, the sheep are not to be grazing on the portion in question, and the sheep were, in fact, allowed to graze on it. That is clear."

She looked around; the noble started to look positively giddy, while the farmer – and a goodly portion of the town, also farmers – started to look angry. But she wasn't done.

"However," she continued. "It was through no fault of his own that the fence was not repaired; there was no reasonable manner in which the farmer could have fixed the fence and tended the sheep so as to prevent them from escaping through the broken fence onto this land."

The people started to look confused, and there was a murmur through the crowd; she ignored it and went on.

"I could just order the farmer to pay the noble a fine; that is the letter of the law, and many judges might do just that," she said. "But I am not a judge, I am a Herald, and that is not a fair judgment. The farmer does not have the ability to be in two places at once, and the fact that his son was ill is hardly his fault. This is a system that is not sustainable; therefore, a strict punishment will not suit."

More murmurs of confusion, and the nobles started to look angry. Eothen started to get more nervous, but there was no stopping now.

"The farmer will pay a fine; in the form of the sale price of one of his lambs to be born this season," she said. "But more than that. No farmer should lose his income because his son is ill. No citizen of Valdemar should become destitute because of illness; it is uncivilized. So, the farmers are to begin branding their sheep. Then they are to abide by a schedule – each farmer shepherds all the sheep of the village one day each sennight. That way, each farmer can spend the remaining days of the sennight working on fence maintenance, planting, harvesting – whatever. This should never happen again."

There was uproar. Eothen was shocked; she hadn't expected everyone to be happy with her ruling, but she hadn't expected them to be this angry, either. She was confused, and rapped the gavel, but no one was paying her one bit of attention. Everyone was yelling, nobles, farmers alike; she had no idea what they were saying, or why they were so angry. She looked over at Alek, who looked just as confused as she was; he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, he had no idea why the people were reacting this way. But then they started to rush the bench, and she ran for the exit just in time to see Aladrian and Kasara galloping to where they stood.

 _:Chosen!:_ said Aladrian. _:Get on! As quickly as you can!:_

Alek was able to jump on Kasara's back with her barely slowing down; were it not for Eothen's gimp leg, she would have done the same, but as it was Aladrian had to skid to a halt in front of her while she clambered to his back. He pivoted neatly in place and galloped back the direction they had come, only a few hoofbeats behind Kasara, and not a moment too soon – the angry mob, nobles and farmers alike, were hot on their heels, chasing them. They ran outside of the village, and into the woods beyond it; they had planned on staying in the inn again that night, but clearly with that level of anger by the villagers, however inexplicable, that was not going to be an option.

"What in the nine hells…..?" Eothen began. "I expected some grumbling from the nobles, but a mob?"

"I'm as surprised as you are," said Alek. "But my Gift is Thoughtsensing; I was able to get a bit of surface thoughts from some of them, and while I am surprised by what I found, I might be able to shed some light on things."

"Well, go ahead, because I'm clueless," said Eothen. "And angry."

"I don't blame you," said Alek. "I'm not happy either. The nobles, as you predicted, were angry because their level of power is challenged; they enjoy keeping the farmers on their land as little more than slaves. Keeps them too busy working and trying to survive to realize that there are actually more of them than there are of the nobles, and if they worked together, they could overthrow the system."

"Oh," said Eothen. "And I just created a rule that says they HAVE to work together."

"Exactly," said Alek. "That threatens their power. I expected some level of discontent from that; I'm sorry, I should have mentioned it when we were discussing options. I did not expect it to be anywhere near this level, and that's part of why I didn't think to mention it; I expected some grumbling, but not violence."

"I don't think anyone could have predicted that," said Eothen.

"The farmers, well, they are a complete surprise," said Alek. "From what I could get, some of them feel that they are being punished by having their days proscribed for them when they are not the ones who let the fence go unmended. They don't see that it was a problem that could have just as easily happened to them; they only see that it happened to that other guy, and they want to believe that he deserved it somehow, like if they just work hard enough they'll never find themselves in that boat."

"That…..sort of makes sense," said Eothen. "Wrongheaded, shortsighted, but I can see how they get there."

"That's the prevailing reason people were angry," said Alek. "Others just went along with the crowd, and a few just – didn't like being told what to do whether or not it makes sense."

"Well, I can identify with that latter," Eothen joked. "I certainly don't enjoy being bossed around, and I don't tolerate it well even if my instructions are completely reasonable."

 _:You get that from me.:_ said Taia.

 _:Hmph.:_ responded Eothen.

"How do we fix it?" asked Alek.

"I'm not sure," answered Eothen. "I think maybe one of us should take the farmers and the other the nobles and try to calm them down."

"I think that's our best bet, but we need to let it cool off overnight and re-enter the village together tomorrow," Alek said. "If they haven't calmed down and decide to fight, we need to be ready to fight, and we're better off together for that."

"Ok," said Eothen. "I think you should take the farmers; you grew up on a farm, you'll be able to speak their language. As much as I don't understand nobles and don't relate to them terrifically well, I'll take that group. Aladrian will help me."

 _:Of course, Chosen.:_ said Aladrian.

"Good plan," agreed Alek. "Now, any chance you can hunt us something to eat while I build a fire?"

"Absolutely, I thought you'd never ask," said Eothen. "I'm starving."

Eothen and Aladrian went off into the woods with her bow. They were gone for longer than Eothen had hoped it would take; the woods were not deep, and they had to stay clear of the edges so that the villagers would not see them. When they finally managed to take down a warthog for dinner, she thought she might pass out from hunger; they headed back for camp as quickly as they could. Alek was happy for the hog, he loved pork; Eothen was wishing she'd settled for rabbit, or even squirrel, since it would cook faster.

"Here," said Alek. "I have a little bit of bread from lunch today, I'll split it with you."

"Thank you," said Eothen. "I'm famished."

"I could tell, you were drooling," said Alek.

"Shut up," said Eothen. "I was not." Alek laughed.

"Only a little," said Alek. "I wish we'd had time to grab our bags from the inn. I had hoped to have enough time to write Malak tonight; I imagine you would have had time to write Hexen, as well."

"Malak?" Eothen asked. "Who's Malak?"

"My husband," Alek said. "He's a bard, frighteningly enough. But – he's a good soul. I miss him."

"Wait, you're – " exclaimed Eothen.

"Shaych?" said Alek. "Yep. I imagine that's why Hexen was ok with you coming on a field circuit with me, no danger of me seducing you."

"Wait, Hexen got to decide who I went on field circuit with?!" Eothen said sharply. This did not make her happy.

"Well, he wouldn't have been allowed to dictate, but he did go to the Dean and make a request that your mentor be either female or shaych like me," said Alek. "I thought you knew."

"Hellfires, no," said Eothen. "I would never have tolerated that. No one, not my mother, my father, my troupe leader – and certainly not Hexen – decides who I do and do not spend time with, and I refuse to be in a relationship with someone who has no faith in my ability to not be seduced like I'm some sort of trollop in the first place!"

"It did strike me as odd that you would have tolerated that kind of paternalism," said Alek, laughing. "You are not exactly a simpering little girl."

"No," said Eothen. "I am not."

And as soon as she had her belongings back, she was going to tell Hexen just exactly how she felt about his assumptions. She was not happy in the least.

But first, she'd have to survive this village.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter eleven**

The next morning, Alek and Eothen rode into the village in their full uniforms in order to remind the people of their Heraldic authority. Before they did anything else, they went into the inn and retrieved their belongings, just in case they needed to make a run for it from these villagers. When they had gotten all of their belongings safely loaded onto their Companions, they went over to the town hall and prepared for the day. The Companions themselves stood immediately outside the rear door, where they had galloped to the rescue the previous day; this way, should Alek and Eothen require an emergency exit, they would be immediately available to provide one. Alek and Eothen, for their parts, took deep breaths and entered the room. Eothen took her place at the judge's table, and Alek took up a not-so-subtle position of guard to her left. Arguably, he was there to provide support and guidance, should she need it; after all, he was her mentor and she was a trainee, not a full Herald. But it was obvious to everyone that while he was certainly there in his capacity of mentor, he was also there to enforce security. Both Heralds were fully armed, and Alek kept his hand oh-so-casually on the hilt of his sword.

"Good morning," said Eothen when the noise had died down enough for her to be heard.

"Yesterday, I gave a resolution on this case which will solve all of the issues at hand, without being overly punitive while preventing a recurrence of the problem," she continued. "You responded by attempting to attack myself and my mentor in a mob. This is hardly appropriate behavior for Valdemaran citizens, and certainly not an intelligent action for a village which has yet to have its tax review. However, today we will hear your concerns and attempt to address them. Anyone who attempts to attack either myself, my mentor, or our Companions will be apprehended by whatever means necessary and tried for their action. You all know the penalty for attempted murder of a Herald."

They did. The penalty was death. The villagers visibly settled in their chairs, although several of them looked more resentful than before; Eothen couldn't worry too much about that, though. She was too busy trying to maintain order and stay alive. She didn't really enjoy being heavy-handed, but after the riot yesterday, she didn't want to take any chances; she didn't want to play games, she wanted to be absolutely clear on what was at stake, what the consequences would be for their disobedience, and what their best path of action should be.

"Now," she said. "I will hear your statements on why the solution I proposed yesterday does not suit your needs."

"These farmers already get away with too much!" said the noble who had been aggrieved by the case in question. The rest of the nobles nodded and made noises in support; Eothen was not impressed. "They break rules, they can't pay their fines, and then they think they should just get away with whatever they want. They ought to be grateful for the protection we provide them!"

"They get away with too much?" asked Eothen. "From where I sit, they get away with nothing at all. It is obvious that most of them do not have any income beyond being able to feed their families, and that only just; where would they get the money to pay fines?"

The nobles began to look angry; the farmers began to look encouraged. Eothen continued.

"The farmer in this case had no intention of breaking any rules; he simply did not have the means to be in two places at the same time. That is not a skill most of you have, so it should be understandable," she said. "And as for your protection, we are not at war. There are no attacks to be protected from, and if there were, where do you think your soldiers come from?"

The nobles started looking just a little bit uncomfortable, and they should; their soldiers largely came from the farmer's families, recruited sometimes voluntarily and sometimes not, depending on need and urgency.

"Exactly," she said, responding to their apparent discomfort. "If you were attacked, you could provide the officers from amongst your own families, and that you do; but the common soldier comes from the common man, and so they provide their own protection as much as you do. They also build the defenses, so in my view, you need them more than they need you. All you provide is the organization and the trade."

The nobles continued to grumble, but they were beginning to see her point.

"And regardless, what good comes from fining and punishing the farmers past their ability to pay?" she pushed the point. "They outnumber you. I shouldn't have to point that out, but I will. If you push a man past what he can bear, he has nothing left to lose, and will fight for his survival. And not only will you suffer from their attack, you will be subject to the full retribution of the army of Valdemar."

The nobles were finished arguing.

"Now," she said. "Farmers. I am not going to lie, I cannot begin to understand what it is about this solution you don't like. Please educate me."

"We don't want to do more than our share," said one of the farmers. "If one man doesn't show up for his shepherding day, then it's not fair to the rest of us, and so forth. Or what if the shepherd loses a sheep that belongs to another man, what should happen to him? We need rules."

Eothen was stunned. They had rioted over that? She could certainly help them work out some rules for how to make this system work.

"Was that a reason to riot?" she asked. "Did you truly suppose that I would not have been willing to sit down with you lot and work out a set of rules for this system that everyone could live with? Could you not have behaved like men, and not animals, and asked the question before making me run for my life and sleep on the ground?"

The farmers looked chagrined, at least.

"Well," said the farmer. "We're sorry, miss. Herald. We truly are. The nobles began rioting, some of our more – excitable – citizens joined them, and then – well, we got carried away. It's no excuse miss, Herald, but that's what happened, and we're sorry."

"Alright, then," said Eothen. "You all sit and agree on who will represent you – five or six people – and we will reconvene in one candlemark to work out the details."

The farmers nodded. The nobles didn't look entirely convinced; Eothen had a feeling that they were hoping that the farmers would renege on something, and they would be able to fine them all the more heavily. But there wasn't a lot she could do about that, not at the moment.

"Now," she said. "As your punishment for being unable, as a village, to restrain yourselves from becoming a mob of animals, your tax review has not yet been completed. Rest assured, we will not be forgiving; you will not pay one Crown less than what is due. If there is doubt, you will pay more. This is not as harsh a punishment as I could levy; keep that in mind, should you decide to argue the point."

There was some grumbling, but for the most part the villagers accepted this consequence for their mob behavior. Eothen dismissed the nobles, and she and Alek went to the inn to have lunch; since there was no more danger of mob attack, they unloaded their belongings and put them back in their rooms to stay the night. At the appointed one candlemark, Eothen went to convene with the farmers to help them work out their plan and Alek dealt with the taxes; they were behind on their circuit schedule due to the mob action, and so instead of Eothen managing the whole village as had been the plan, they decided to divide the work, get back on schedule and move on to the next village on time. They also decided that in the interest of time, their original plan of Eothen working with the nobility and Alek with the farmers would not suit; Eothen needed to work with the group that needed the most help with rules and regulations, and also not anger by her lack of finesse with nobility. That lesson could wait until they were dealing with, hopefully, a village that would not attack them, as well as one where they were not already running behind schedule.

It took longer than Eothen thought it would; these farmers were not used to working together. They were fiercely independent and did not trust anyone else to do what they had been doing by themselves for generations. But in the end, they decided to not rotate shepherd duties; they voted for the farmer who was the best shepherd. Then they voted for the one who would be responsible for fence maintenance, crop planting and harvesting, until each major division of their job was covered. When they were done, they had also come to an agreement on how to pay each of the farmers a fair share of the total income as was reflected by their duties. Eothen was exhausted – but very proud of them. They would now not only have individually more time and less work, but collectively be able to stand up to the nobility when they inevitably were challenged. Eothen was a little worried about that, but realistically, didn't see any way to solve a problem that hadn't actually happened yet. And besides, these nobles needed a check on their power, and the cooperation of the farmers was what would provide that, absent a Herald. There weren't enough of those to go around in the first place, let alone be permanently stationed in any one particular town; she had a feeling, too, that she would find similar problems in every town she visited. There certainly were not enough Heralds for that.

Alek had finished going through the taxes, and they met at the inn for dinner.

"They were…..mostly honest," he informed her.

"Mostly?" asked Eothen. "What were they dishonest about, and who was it, exactly?"

"The farmers and the tradesmen didn't try to get away with much," answered Alek. "I have a strong suspicion that the few who did try to get away with lying about their income were the same that just followed the crowd in the mob; there is always that population, in any village or city, who will just try to push the limits of what they can get away with."

"But the rest were nobles?" Eothen asked. "I'll admit, I have a strong bias against anyone who rates themselves as superior based only on their social status at birth."

"You have a point," said Alek. "But you also must remember, that if people were honest of character and fulfilled the duties of their station as they are expected to do, there is nothing inherently better about being the noble than being the farmer. Both positions are equally needed; the farmer needs to produce food, and the noble needs to negotiate trade and organize military protection. It isn't supposed to be an idea of 'better', just different. And there is something to be said about learning the duties of the job as you grow up, so that by the time you actually fill it you know what you're doing – particularly in leadership roles. But at the same time, it doesn't leave a lot of room for choice, and that is one of the flaws; although that part is equally true for the noble as the farmer."

"True," admitted Eothen. "Although, not being able to make your own choices seems a lot easier when you're rich."

"They also have to marry for political reasons, not love," said Alek. "I hear what you're saying, I just want to point out that not everything is roses when you're a noble any more than when you're a farmer."

"Okay," said Eothen. "I can agree with that."

"Anyway," said Alek. "The noble that brought the charge against the farmer here, I'm sure you won't be surprised that he was one of the nobles trying to cheat the system. I made sure he was penalized…just a little extra. The rest – well, there were of course a few who were honest, and even a few that I believe were honest mistakes; but this was the largest population trying to violate the tax code."

"What is it about being wealthy that they keep trying to get more?" asked Eothen. "When is enough enough?"

"Never," said Alek. "There is never enough, and the more a person has, the more they want. That's just human nature. And some of them, in all fairness, are only wealthy in name; they have land and possession, but not a lot of income. It's harder for them to actually pay, in coin, what they owe; I can understand why they might try to get away with a bit."

"So why don't they just sell something?" said Eothen. "Seems pretty simple to me."

"And it would be," said Alek, "if they were merchants, or tradesmen. But they aren't. If they sell their property, the farmers and tradesmen under their protection now lose their place, and are subject to whoever buys it. That might not be a good result. And if they keep selling, then all of a sudden they are the ones without homes, without marketable job skills, and hungry on the streets. That doesn't seem fair, either."

"They have an education," said Eothen. "They can go be teachers, mercenaries, lots of things. Or they can learn a trade."

"And some of them do," said Alek. "But that doesn't solve the problem of all the people dependent on them. It's not as easy as you're making it."

"Probably not," said Eothen. "I still don't like it, though."

"Me neither," said Alek. "But they are not always bad people just because they were born noble any more than they are always good people just because they were born farmers. Either position is an accident of birth; they are each responsible for their own actions. And while the system we have has some definite flaws, it takes a lot of time to create a new one, and likely it would also have flaws. Systems are created by the people living under them, and people have flaws; it stands to reason that the things they create also would. So at least be honest and fair when you're looking at them."

Eothen figured that was a reasonable request. She recognized the fact that while she had a tendency to judge nobility harshly, she just had a hard time not doing it. She recognized the truth in Alek's arguments, though, that they did in fact serve a purpose; and a valuable one, if the system worked as intended. She also recognized the fact that no system would ever be perfect.

 _:And it is the ability to see multiple angles of an issue that will make you such an excellent Herald.:_ said Aladrian. _:And the fact that you are willing to rethink your positions when presented with new ideas; you have no idea how rare that is.:_

 _:I do, in fact.:_ she replied. _:Mercenaries are not generally a tractable lot. They're set in their ways and their opinions, and most of them don't even know there IS another point of view, much less are they willing to listen to it.:_

 _:Why do you think you are different?:_ asked Aladrian.

Eothen thought about it for a second.

 _:Well,:_ she replied, _:most mercenaries spend their entire lives in one spot, at least in their formative years. Raised by their parents, rich or poor, doesn't matter much – they spend their lives only seeing one thing; their own home, their own people, people who see the world and experience it in much the same way they do.:_

 _:And you didn't.:_ said Aladrian.

 _:No.:_ she answered. _:I grew up wandering around, seeing all sorts of towns in all sorts of parts of the world – not as big of a world as it is now, but still, not the same view every day – so I saw different kinds of people, with different ways of viewing the world, and while none of them treated us particularly well, I think it's easier to see different points of view when you at least are exposed to them.:_

 _:Very true.:_ said Aladrian. _:Very true. And very wise.:_

Now that was a word Eothen had never heard used to describe herself. Stubborn, intractable, hard-headed, and unemotional – those words she had heard. Only one of those descriptors was true, she thought; she was stubborn. But she could, and regularly did, change her mind; and she was not unemotional. She was in control of her feelings and didn't display them often; but that was not the same thing as not feeling them at all. Which brought her to the next thing she needed to do that day – she needed to write to Hexen, and explain to him in many different ways just exactly why he did not, in fact, get to have any say whatsoever in who she did or did not spend time with.

 _Dear Hexen,_

 _It has come to my attention that you believe I am your property. Apparently, you think it is acceptable for you to go to the Dean and dictate who I can and cannot go on my internship with as if I were not only a child, but yours. I am not. I am my own person and I belong to no one. NO ONE. If you do not trust me to not be seduced by whomever I am spending time with, then you may choose to take your leave of me this moment. I am not some mindless sexpot twit who spreads her legs for whomever crosses her path. I am not incapable of self-control. You will never, and I mean NEVER, do anything like this again. I will spend time with whomever I choose, whether they be male, female or otherwise, and you will either trust me to remain faithful or you will leave; that is your choice. But you do not own me. You do not tell me who I can or cannot spend time with, and if you have concerns you will discuss them WITH ME, and not with some other man you seem to think has concurrent ownership of my person. I thought you knew this about me by now, but apparently not, so I am telling you once. I will not tell you again._

 _Eothen_

That ought to do it. If it didn't, as much as Eothen loved Hexen – and she did – she would not spend one more moment in his company, let alone in his bed.

 _:That's my girl.:_ said both Taia and Aladrian simultaneously into her head.

 _:No.:_ she replied. _:That's the point. I'm no one's 'girl'.:_

 _:Hmph.:_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter twelve**

Eothen had hoped that the arguments between nobles and commoners was limited to the town they just left, but it was not to be. It was only the beginning. Every town they visited, there was some version of the same argument; the nobles were trying to squeeze everything they could out of the people who had nothing left to give. Petty squabbles, peasants between two hard choices and trying to make the best of it and usually coming up short, legally speaking. Eothen tried to rule not just fairly, but justly, and to help the people work out more reasonable compromises; but she felt like she was chasing a caravan that was running faster and faster in the opposite direction.

"I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle,"" she told Alek one night.

"Me too," Alek replied. "The last time I took a new Herald on their internship circuit, there were hints of these kinds of disputes; but nothing on this level. I think that when we get back to Haven, we need to bring this up to the general Council and see if we can't get a review of the laws."

"I'm not so sure it can wait until we get back," said Eothen. "If we're already feeling like it's a losing battle, it's only going to get worse in the next six moons. Add to that the fact that it will likely take at least another six moons to get the Council to agree on new laws, and another several for the Heralds to get the word out to the citizens, I think they need to start negotiating them now."

"You're right," said Alek. "But I'm not so sure that either Aladrian or Kasara are able to communicate to the other Companions from this distance. Kasara tells me that there was once a time when Companions could communicate with the Monarch's Own Companion no matter how far away they were, but those days are gone."

"Aladrian tells me the same thing," said Eothen. "Not specifically that, I mean, but that the Companions once had powers that they no longer possess, and that the Gifts we have are fewer and weaker than in the past."

"Makes you wonder," said Alek.

"About what?" asked Eothen.

"Whether or not all the legends of warrior mages are true, and not just bedtime stories," he replied.

Eothen considered telling Alek that she knew for a fact that those legends were true; but she did not. He would have undoubtedly though she was crazy. She wasn't certain he would be wrong.

 _:Probably for the best.:_ said Taia. _:Although…..I may be able to help in this particular arena. Aladrian knows I 'exist'. I can boost his Mindspeech enough to reach Taver. He can play up his superior abilities any way he sees fit.:_

 _:I think Aladrian would like that.:_ said Eothen.

 _:From what I remember about Companions, they'll take any opportunity to make themselves appear grander.:_ said Taia.

 _:That part hasn't changed.:_ said Eothen. _:Any idea why so much else has changed? There hasn't been a mage in anyone's memory at all. And if all the Gifts are weaker, and the Companions are too, there has to be a reason for it. Any ideas on how we could get it back to how it was in your day?:_

 _:You can't.:_ said Taia. _:In my day, magic was concentrated in things called nodes; it was collected there by the work of many mages. The Tale'edras, in fact, our cousins – the ones with the birds. But the Mage Storms came, a result of the Cataclysm so long ago that you saw when I showed you the death of Urtho and Ma'ar:_ \- Eothen thought she detected a little hitch in Taia's Mindvoice when she said Ma'ar's name, what was that about? - _:and after those storms, magic was dispersed. It still existed, but instead of being like lakes and rivers the way I was used to that could really be used, it was more like a mist. It took a mage of great power to be able to harness it and use it in any real way.:_

 _:But wouldn't that just mean that such mages were rare, not nonexistent?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:Good question.:_ answered Taia. _:It would seem so. And I suppose it's possible, but Mage Gift, when it's present, has a tendency to make itself known rather violently. It is possible that such children do not survive the experience anymore, in fact. But even if they did – there are no more teachers. I think it is far more likely that the ability has just simply burned itself out. And with magic more difficult to utilize, the abilities of the Companions have shrunk as well.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ said Eothen.

 _:Right.:_ said Taia. _:Now, for the issue at hand…..:_

 _:I am ready.:_ said Aladrian.

"Aladrian says he can reach Taver, if he concentrates," Eothen sait to Alek. "He will be exhausted, so we should be prepared to remain here until he recovers; but I think it's worth the effort."

"Really?" asked Alek. "That's impressive. We can certainly stay here for a day, if he thinks he can do it. I agree that it's worth the delay."

Eothen put a blanket over Aladrian's back; Taia would be boosting him, but he was still going to use every last bit of his own energy for this. She didn't want him catching a chill. He nuzzled her his thanks and moved closer to the fire. He lowered his head, ears forward, eyes closed, and went very still. For what seemed like days but was really only half a candlemark, everything was silent. Aladrian seemed to glow, and only Eothen recognized that glow as mage energy – largely from Taia – and not a particular Companion trick. Well, except for Kasara of course; she knew that Companions couldn't do this anymore, but she wasn't going to say so.

When it was over, Aladrian was no longer glowing. In fact, he almost appeared grey, and his eyes, while still blue, were certainly dimmer.

 _:Are you alright?:_ asked Eothen, alarmed.

 _:Yes.:_ he replied, in barely a whisper. _:Tired. Will tell you more tomorrow. Sleep now.:_

Eothen was alarmed, and a bit disappointed that she would have to wait until morning to hear anything about how the conversation went; but she could clearly see that Aladrian was far too exhausted to tell her now – in fact he was already asleep – and so she would just have to wait. Unless Taia…..

 _:No.:_ Taia said. _:I am out of energy. Tomorrow.:_

Eothen sighed. Patience was not one of her virtues. But there was nothing to be done for it, so she got up and wandered off into the woods with her bow to hunt some meat for tomorrow's breakfast, and possibly lunch. There was no telling how long Aladrian would be sleeping, and when he woke, he may not be ready to travel just yet; they would likely be camping here the next night as well as this one, so she may as well have enough meat to feed herself and Alek for the day. Besides, she was in need of some skins to make new breeches, so even if they didn't need the meat they would have to find a way to deliver it to someone who did while she worked the skin.

The sun was just setting out of the woods, and there was plenty of light there; but inside the treeline, the leaves and the branches were so thick that it was difficult to see. They were just on the edge of a forest she had once heard had once been called the Pelagiris; it was rumored to be home to all sorts of unusual creatures, and people said it was haunted. There were all sorts of stories parents used to scare their children into behaving, stories about poisonous lizards, screaming giant birds, any number of nightmares. But Eothen didn't believe in anything like that; everyone knew those were just stories. Every culture she'd ever come into contact with had similar stories, all used for the purpose of making sure that children didn't fight with their siblings, they ate their vegetables, they went to bed on time. There was nothing particularly unusual about this forest, though, as far as Eothen could tell; the trees were perhaps a bit larger than other forests, but that was just a matter of species.

Except that Taia had shown her those Vales, she suddenly remembered; and she knew, from Taia's stories, that plenty of things she had once believed to be nothing but bedtime stories had in fact been true. Or at least, mostly true. Was there any truth to those stories about monsters? She was not easily spooked, but suddenly every shadow was a giant lizard, every trick of the light was a ghost. She told herself to stop being ridiculous; even if there had once been monsters of some kind in this forest, they were long since gone. This was just a forest, like any other, home to deer and warthogs and rabbits. And right now, it was deer she was looking for.

She creeped along, trying not to make any noise as she walked along the spare paths of the forests, trying to not look behind her to see what ghastly creature she knew was following her, trying to ignore the raised hairs on the back of her neck. Stop it, she told herself; there was no such thing as monsters. The only monsters left were human, and she had defeated plenty of those.

Finally, she found her target; a large stag, in the smallest of clearings, as if it were just sitting there waiting for her to come and kill it. He was perfect; he had a large set of antlers, which she would use to make knife handles, silverware, and maybe a new set of game pieces for the game of ketuba Hexen liked to play. It had a thick, unmarked hide that would make beautiful breeches and probably have enough left over for a vest or maybe even a whole tunic. He had not noticed that she was there yet; she planted herself behind a large tree, took a deep breath and said the blessing her parents had taught her to say before she took the life of a creature, thanking it for its sacrifice. She raised her bow, took aim – and fired.

The stag fell, and she quickly ran over to make sure he didn't suffer. She had hit him square in the heart; he was dead. She took out her small hunting knife and began to clean the corpse; she slit the belly open and pulled out the bowels. They were sometimes good for making sausage, but she didn't have the time for that here; they would make a nice offering for the scavengers of these woods. Similarly with the other organs; if she had been in a place where she could preserve them, there were uses for each one, although she personally did not eat organ meat very often. She wasn't entirely sure what to do with the head at this moment; she wanted the antlers, but she didn't want the rest of the head either. She decided she would haul it back with her, harvest the antlers and then dispose of the rest the next day. She had not brought her large knife with her, only the small hunting knife; that was little more than a handle with a sharp end, not good for anything more than gutting a deer. She could not harvest antlers with it, and so she stood up to prepare herself to drag this corpse back to camp with her.

And felt something jump on her back.

She screamed and whirled around to find a man grasping at her with his hands, his knife pulling at her clothing. It wasn't clear whether he was trying to kill her or rape her; she wasn't sure he knew, even, and she wasn't about to wait and find out which. She kicked, she punched, she bit; she cursed herself for leaving her knives and her sword at the tent. Didn't she know better than to never go anywhere without a knife in her boot, at least? But she had been focused on hunting, believing herself safe. And now here she was about to die because she was stupid enough to break a rule she had followed every day of her life since she was old enough to walk. At the very least, why had she not brought her larger knife with her in anticipation of taking a deer? She knew she was hunting deer, why had she not thought ahead to bring something she could harvest antlers with, at least? That knife would have been large enough to have done her some good here. But no; she was clearly unprepared. And it was going to cost her, at the very least, her bodily autonomy.

She fought hard, with her gimp leg and her stubby hunting knife, but her attacker was half again her size and had come prepared with a knife – a real one – of his own. Her tunic was now in rags, and she had several cuts about her harms and her chest; if she lived, this deer might have to provide a tunic before breeches, at this rate, but that would wait to be determined. First she had to live, and at this point that was by no means certain. She thought about trying to rouse Aladrian from his slumber but he was so exhausted….if he were arousable, he would have been here by now. So she kept kicking, kept punching, kept barely holding that knife away from her throat and hoped for a lucky punch of her own….

But it was a losing battle, and she knew it. Her attacker swept her gimp leg out from under her just as she was raising her good one to kick him between his legs and down she went, hard. She prepared herself to mentally scream for Aladrian as 'loud' as she could, hoping he heard her, and hoping just as hard that she could hold her attacker's knife hand away from her throat long enough for him to arrive, but she was pretty sure he would be too late even if she succeeded in waking him. She wondered briefly if Kasara, or even Alek had enough Gift to hear her if she really tried, but Alek didn't have a Mindspeech Gift at all. Hers was weak, and Kasara was not her Companion; there was no reason for her to be able to hear her call. She was on her own, and she was going to fail.

The knife was in her attacker's hand, at her throat; he had his knees on her thighs, and had apparently decided to rape her before killing her, since his other hand was fiddling with his pants. Hers were long since shredded, and her hands were both occupied by keeping the knife from actually slicing into her neck; she prepared herself for what she knew he was about to do, as much as she thought she could, anyway…

And suddenly there was a giant blur running from her left side. She heard a growl, and the man was gone; before she knew what had happened, there was a muted scream that was not coming from her own throat, a wet gurgle - and it was over. She rolled over on her side, stunned, having no idea what she would see - and found herself face to face with the biggest wolf she had ever seen.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter thirteen**

Eothen's heart sank. She had already been about to lose her battle against this unknown human assailant; there was no way she could defeat this giant wolf with nothing but a hunting knife. She sighed and prepared herself to at least make an attempt to defend herself; she wanted to at least die sitting up, not lying down. But the wolf made no attempts to attack her; in fact, it was behaving quite strangely. It looked down at the dead man almost with disgust – Eothen decided for the moment to not wonder why she was attributing human emotion to a wolf – and backed up. It turned around and looked her right in the eye, sat down on its haunches, and sneezed. Eothen couldn't help it; she burst out laughing.

 _:Well, that wasn't exactly the introduction I was hoping for.:_ said an unfamiliar voice into Eothen's head.

What? What was this? This was too much. First Aladrian, then Taia – who wasn't even alive – and now, what? A _wolf_? Speaking into her mind? No. This was too much. This was not something she was about to accept. She yelped – humiliating – and jumped backwards a bit, landing flat on her backside. Ow. But she sat there for a moment, and took another look at this wolf, who was the only creature around; could the voice be coming from it? That did not make sense. Animals did not speak, Mindspeech or no. Wait, could it be this Whitestar person? Taia's lifebonded? She, like Taia, was also not alive, and therefore would not be visible, so – but no. Taia said that Whitestar was not capable of Mindspeaking the living, only Healing them, except when doing so _through_ Taia. Who had exhausted her energies helping Aladrian Mindspeak Taver, so it couldn't possibly be her. So….it had to be…..she stared at this wolf.

Now that she was really looking, it didn't look all that much like a wolf at all. Its head was bigger, and its body looked almost catlike; but she could see how it could be mistaken for an unusually large wolf. But what was it? By now, she could tell that it was not, in fact, an it – she. What was she? Not a wolf, not a cat, capable of Mindspeech, and clearly capable and willing to kill a human – but not attacking her.

 _:Kyree.:_ said the wolf. _:I am a kyree. Once, our peoples were friends; my people lived alongside yours on the Dhorisha Plains. Now, your people have left, and I am the last of my kind.:_

The last? How was it that so much about the world seemed to be ending? The Shin'a'in had lived on those Plains for hundreds of years, and now they wandered the world without purpose; the Tale'edras had cleansed the Pelagirs for generations, and now they performed circus tricks with overly intelligent, oversized falcons. The nations that had stood for as long as anyone knew were fracturing; the Companions were not as populous or as powerful as they claimed to have once been, magic was all but gone, and what was left was weaker. Why? What was going on with the world? And why did no one know how to fix it?

"What is a kyree?" asked Eothen stupidly. Of all the questions she seemed to have lately, this one seemed to be the least important. "And why did you rescue me? Thank you, by the way, and why can you talk inside my head?"

If a wolfish creature could laugh, Eothen was pretty sure the kyree was doing so. But there was no help for it; she didn't have the answers to her questions, she needed them, and she had a tendency to get a bit flustered when surprised and confused.

 _:You are aware that Urtho created intelligent beasts, no?:_ asked the kyree.

"Yes," said Eothen. "I mean, I have heard of them. I thought they were just legends though."

 _:They are real.:_ said the kyree. _:Or, at least, they were. The tervardi are gone – they were bird people. You should have heard them sing! The hertasi, too; they were lizardlike, and when the Tale'edras left their Vales, the hertasi disappeared. No one knows for sure whether or not there are any left of these at all; it is possible that they still survive in small pockets, or if they have somehow blended with human populations. But as distinct peoples, thriving peoples, they are gone.:_

"Oh," said Eothen. "That's….terrible."

 _:Yes.:_ said the kyree. _:The ratha – they are the cat-version of kyree – they are extinct. Killed in an uprising in Iftel; they were accused of trying to overtake the throne and many believed they would enslave the humans, so the humans killed them.:_

"That's even worse," Eothen said.

 _:The dyheli – they were like reindeer – have done the best. They have lost some of their magic, but they are rumored to have traveled to the far north and now live with some tribal people on the northern edge of the world. I have heard that they are treasured as an integral part of these people's heritage, but at the same time, having lost their magic – they are little more than pretty cattle. But, they do survive.:_

"Well, that's something, I suppose," said Eothen weakly. She wasn't sure it was, in fact, something; would it be better to survive, but not as what you were, or to become extinct in all your original glory? She did not know. She didn't really want to find out.

 _:The gryphons – ah, the gryphons, Urtho's masterpiece. He was so proud of the gryphons. But they are gone. No one really knows why; they just stopped being able to breed. It is like something was forgotten on how to do it. Their physiology was a mystery, and there was something unique about their – process – I do not know what it was. And I think they had forgotten. But it doesn't so much matter why, does it; it simply is. And when I die, there will be no more kyree. Technically – I could mate with a wolf, or a dog, but that is…..distasteful.:_

The kyree wrinkled her nose; Eothen could see how that would be distasteful, it would be like her reproducing with…..she didn't know. But not a human. But would it be better to live, the last of your kind, and know that when you died there would be no one to even remember you had ever existed at all? She didn't know. So many questions, so few answers.

"Why are you here?" asked Eothen.

 _:I am lonely.:_ said the kyree. _:Among the kyree, there used to be three genders – male, female, and neuter. The males and females formed the pack, and the neuters generally ventured out, had adventures, collected histories – all sorts of things. But as I am the last, I have no pack. I am lonely.:_

"So you wandered around to find…me?" said Eothen. "I am hardly a pack. It's just me, really. And Aladrian, my Companion. Do you know what a Companion is? Oh, and Hexen, if I decide to take him back."

Who was she kidding? She was going to take him back. She hadn't actually decided to give him up.

 _:I do know what a Companion is.:_ said the kyree. _:I have spoken to your Aladrian, in fact; he knew I was coming. He did not know I would arrive today, however; but then, neither did I. You also have your spirit friends, Taia and Whitestar.:_

"How did you know about that?!" exclaimed Eothen, feeling somewhat afraid, and somewhat embarrassed. There were times, despite all the evidence she had seen, that she still thought Taia was a figment of her imagination.

 _:She does things other than spy on you, you know. She saw me coming and said 'hello'.:_ said the kyree. _:But more in answer to your question. When the neuter of our pack left, they would often bond to another intelligent creature – usually a human, but they have been known to bond to gryphons, dyheli, or whatever they felt compelled to bond to. It is something like your Companion bond, although we will survive the loss of each other. It is not something that can be explained; I simply feel compelled to bond to you. I am Rika.:_

Bond? To another person? It was bad enough she was made to be a Herald, which was not a career she would have chosen. She wouldn't trade Aladrian for anything, but – it seemed she had so little freedom left, and now she was being asked to bond to this kyree? But then she looked into Rika's eyes, and saw a kindred spirit. She saw also the insecurity and the desperation that Rika was trying to hide, hoping that Eothen would agree. She thought about how incredibly lonely it must be to be the last of her kind, and knew she really didn't have a choice – she was Rika's, and Rika was hers. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

"All right, then," was all she said. She got up from the ground, then, disturbed to find that her clothing didn't qualify as such anymore, hanging as rags from her nearly naked and liberally lacerated skin. And then it hurt.

"Ow," she moaned a bit.

 _:Only just now noticed the pain, I see.:_ said Rika.

"Yeah," she replied. "And there's still that deer to haul back to camp; I'd hate to leave it here and go to waste, after all of that."

 _:Not to worry.:_ said Rika, as she padded over to the venison in question and proceeded to drag it towards camp.

Well, thought Eothen, this could prove to be quite the advantageous partnership. Ready defense, hunting assistance…a girl could get used to this. She walked slowly over to the corpse of her attacker to see – she wasn't sure what she wanted to look for, but some kind of morbid curiosity made her look.

And she was stunned.

It was the eldest son of one of the nobles from the town they had just come from. It seemed that he was angry enough with her ruling – more decidedly in favor of the farmers, in that town, than the nobles, since these particular nobles had made their farmers slightly worse off than slaves – and had come to take his revenge. Or was it just him? Had he come of his own free will, or had he been sent? She had no real way of knowing, at least not without going back to that town. Which she was by no means certain she wanted to do; if they were willing to send a man out to follow her, stalk her, hunt her and try to kill her, what would they do as a town if she went back and started asking questions? She needed to consult with Aladrian; but she knew he was still out cold from his earlier exertion. But Alek would be awake. He would know what to do. He had to. That's what mentors were for, right?

Right. So she walked – with difficulty, and very slowly – alongside Rika towards camp, resolutely ignoring the pain where she had been cut by the knife and even more resolutely ignoring the pain from pulled muscles she was angry to discover were not as well toned as she wanted them to be. To much riding, too much sitting on a judge's bench, not enough sparring. She resolved to remedy that, as soon as she healed enough to do so. They walked for what seemed like hours, but finally they arrived at the clearing where the campsite was. They continued to walk towards the camp, but Eothen suddenly stopped; why was Alek yelling? And why was he running for – oh, gods, he had grabbed his bow, and he was aiming it at them! Had he lost his mind? She turned and looked behind her, but there was nothing – oh, it was Rika! He was getting ready to shoot Rika!

She quickly moved in front of her new friend, but that seemed to only make Alek yell louder; he apparently did not know what Rika was, and had not yet figured out that there was a reason Eothen was not allowing him to shoot her. But he held still for a moment, and then just as suddenly put down his bow; it was evident that Kasara had noticed what was going on and had given her Chosen a bit of education on the finer points of not killing the last _kyree_ in Velgarth. It seemed like yet another several hours before they reached the actual camp, and when they did Eothen just collapsed onto her bedroll while Rika politely dropped the deer carcass at Alek's feet.

"I would really very much appreciate it, Alek, if you could finish preparing that meat," said Eothen. "And Rika here, she's a _kyree_ – they're, I suppose, rather like Companions. Please don't shoot her, she's the last of her kind, and I'm rather fond of her for saving my life. In fact, she's probably hungry and would appreciate a bit of venison herself."

"I'm thinking there's a story here," said Alek. "Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?"

"I'm going to tell you," said Eothen. "I just want to stop hurting for a moment first."

Eothen reached with one arm into her pack, which conveniently was right next to her bedroll, and dug out some salve. This salve had both painkilling and healing properties, and she slathered herself with it, using her tattered clothing as bandage material and wrapping herself up in a blanket. Then she sat up and started talking.

"So the eldest son of one of the nobles from the last village," said Eothen, "he followed us. He waited until I was alone in the woods and distracted by cleaning the deer, and then he attacked me."

"What?!" said Alek. "Why didn't you call for help?"

"My Mindspeech Gift is not very strong, and Aladrian was out cold from his exertion today," said Eothen, a bit annoyed that this was the only thing Alek had commented on. "You don't have a Mindspeech Gift, so how was I supposed to do that?"

"Kasara," said Alek. "You could have called Kasara, she would have brought me to you."

"But she's your Companion, not mine," Eothen said, even more frustrated.

"She would have heard you," said Alek. "In an emergency, she would have heard you."

"Good to know, a bit too late," said Eothen. "Anyway, I'm not sure whether he was sent to rape me or kill me or both, or whether he attacked out of his own free will – no, he didn't succeed in either, although it was a near thing – but Rika came to my rescue, and he is now beginning to rot in the woods."

"Well, I'd suggest that's the best place for him," said Alek. "Except for one thing."

"And that is…" said Eothen. She really did not relish the idea of dealing with that corpse.

"We will need his body as proof, of course," said Alek.

"Proof?" said Eothen, pretending not to understand, but she had a sinking feeling she knew where this was going.

"Of course, proof," said Alek, as if he were speaking to a particularly slow student. "We have to go back and find out whether he was sent or if he came on his own; if he was on his own, then no harm done, he has been served his punishment. But if he was sent – "

"We will need the Guard, if he was sent," said Eothen. "They won't hesitate to kill both of us to try to cover this up, if they sent him."

"You're probably right," said Alek. "Which means this just got a lot more complicated than simply warning Haven of an impending social crisis."

Alek had no idea how right he was.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter fourteen**

The problem, of course, was that the most effective means of shocking the village into admitting responsibility for their attack would be to ride in and deposit the corpse in the center of town for all to see. But Eothen was not in any shape to travel for a day at least, and in any case it was more than a day's ride back to the village. The corpse, even if they left that same moment, would be in an advanced state of rot by the time they arrived, and they needed to make a plan before they left, in any case. Eothen was incredibly unhappy to have to stay put; she didn't feel safe here, anymore, not knowing that at least one person from the previous town had tracked and tried to kill her. How was she to know there weren't more?

 _:If anyone on our backtrail sought to kill you, soulsister, I would find them and I would kill them.:_ said Rika.

Comforting, Eothen thought. But why hadn't Aladrian sensed this man's presence? Eothen was bonded to him long before Rika had ever entered the picture, and she knew he hadn't been just not paying attention.

 _:He had not been following us for long.:_ said Aladrian. _:In fact, he had not been on our backtrail at all. He seems to have been spirited to our camp from some distance away, and believe me, I do not know how. Or by whom.:_

 _:I know you would never let anyone sneak up on me.:_ said Eothen. _:It's not your fault.:_

She could 'hear' Aladrian's frustration and guilt that he hadn't been able to protect her, but what she said was true – it hadn't been his fault. He hadn't sensed the man because he wasn't there; which left them with the additional problem of figuring out exactly how the man had mysteriously appeared.

 _:There is only one way I know of to 'spirit' anyone from one place to another, and there is no one left in this world capable of doing it.:_ said Taia. _:Besides, if that was how it was done, it would leave a magical trace that Aladrian or Rika could sense, and if they could not, I could – and there is no such trace.:_

 _:What is it, a spell or something?:_ asked Eothen. Even if Taia said it was impossible, she wanted to know what it was; there was always the possibility that the ghost was wrong.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Taia. _:I am not wrong. Not about this, anyway. It is called a Gate; it is a high-level spell that an Adept-level mage – you don't need to know what that means, they don't exist anymore – could do. After the magestorms, there were only a handful of mages that could even do it then. I was one of them, and Whitestar another, and largely only because we could use each other's energy as easily as we could breathe. By the end of our lives, we couldn't even do it anymore. Magic now is much too weak for any existing mage to be able to do this spell. I couldn't even do it now, were I still, you know, existing.:_

Oh. Well, then, there was that.

 _:There is such a thing as an illusion, however.: said_ Taia cryptically. Aladrian picked his head up from where he was grazing, put his ears back and stamped at what appeared to be empty air; Rika growled in the same direction. Apparently, thought Eothen, that's where Taia 'was'. Alek looked up, confused, but decided Aladrian was just frustrated with a conversation he was having with Eothen. It wasn't entirely incorrect; the fact that Eothen could just pretend to be having a conversation with Aladrian, and now Rika, was very handy, considering her conversations also included an actual ghost.

 _:An illusion?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:They require much less magic than a Gate. I used to use them quite frequently. If that man had been illusioned to appear as a bush, for example, he could have been standing right in front of you for days and you would have never seen anything other than a bush.:_ said Taia.

 _:I would have sensed that.:_ said Aladrian angrily.

 _:With respect, horse, I doubt you would have.:_ said Taia. _:The amount of energy it requires for a very simple illusion is scarcely more than the ambient level. Your kind is sensitive to magic, yes; but you would notice a change in the ambient level of magic around you. You would not notice a simple illusion, since it doesn't change the level at all.:_

Aladrian held his ears back and stamped his foot again, but he didn't argue. Even he had to admit that Taia likely knew more about this than he did; the fact didn't make him happy, but it didn't change the fact, either. It did explain how the man had followed them for days without being noticed, but it did not explain who it had been to cast this illusion. And it did not explain why, when they were in the village in question, they had not noticed the presence of a mage.

 _:That one I probably am responsible for.:_ said Aladrian, hanging his head. _:We aren't used to looking for mages anymore. There haven't been any in a generation at least.:_

 _:Even that you shouldn't take the blame for.:_ said Rika. _:With a good shield, even if you had been actively looking for a mage, you wouldn't have seen him. And there haven't been active mages for a generation, as you say, so why would you have been looking?:_

Aladrian put his ears back again, but he lowered his head and closed his shining blue eyes.

 _:My Chosen almost died because I did not see him coming, and what's worse, was too exhausted to hear her call.:_ he said dejectedly.

 _:Enough of that.:_ said Eothen. _:I didn't call, anyway, so there was nothing to hear.:_

 _:It doesn't matter anymore anyway, it's done, and the task at hand is to make a plan of how to address it.:_ Rika was clearly tired of all the time they were wasting feeling guilty and wanted to move on to solutions. Eothen couldn't say as she disagreed. She knew Aladrian felt terrible, but she also knew that if it had been possible for him to come to her rescue, nothing would have stopped him. So there was no point in continuing to wallow in unfounded guilt. There would never have been an issue in the first place had she not been stupid enough to leave camp to go hunting alone in a strange forest without a decent weapon in the first place, so if there was blame to be had, it was hers. If she had not broken a child's rule, she would not have needed rescuing.

"I'm going to go into the woods with Kasara," said Alek. "Clearly, we won't be able to actually take the body back to the village; it would be rotten before we got there. But maybe if we just take some identifying clothing, that will be sufficient."

"Good idea," said Eothen. "I'm in no condition to do it myself, and I'm sure you'll be able to find it."

"When I get back, we need to sit down and discuss a plan," said Alek. "I'm afraid we'll need at least a few members of the Guard, but I don't know where to find them right at the moment."

In the past, the Guard had always been stationed in various towns, relatively permanently – the actual members of the Guard at any one station would change as they were promoted, recruited, killed or retired – but the posts themselves stayed the same. It was the Heralds that had maintained a circuit, keeping order, communication, settling disputes; but there weren't enough Heralds anymore, or enough Guard, and disputes tended to get more violent more quickly than they had in the past, so the Guard kept up a circuit as well. This made it more possible for them to be present in more areas more frequently, and hopefully keep riots from developing; but if a riot did develop, or they were needed for something, it made it much more difficult to find them.

"I wonder if it would be worth the time and effort for Aladrian to Mindspeak Taver again and try to find out where they are," said Eothen.

 _:Oh, gods, I hope I don't have to do that again.:_ said Aladrian. _:It was almost impossible the first time, and I really don't relish the idea of being out of commission – again – for a full day.:_

 _:I know, but we may not have another option.:_ said Eothen.

 _:We have plenty of options, youngling.:_ said Taia. _:Farsight is one of my Gifts, afterall, I can look for the Guard and tell you where they are. Rika can scout, as well, but I think my Farsight is the quicker and easier option.:_

 _:Good. Thank you.:_ said Eothen. _:I will give Aladrian the credit. He's going to be the realm's most powerful Companion, soon enough.:_

Taia chuckled. Aladrian snorted.

"Aladrian is going to use some kind of magic to look for the Guard," Eothen told Alek.

"How is it that Aladrian has all these capabilities and Kasara doesn't?" asked Alek. Eothen panicked – she didn't have an answer for this. But it seemed Kasara did, because Alek got that blank stare that meant Kasara was talking to him. His face went a bit pale, then he started looking around frantically at things that weren't there – and Eothen realized Kasara had actually told him the truth.

"You – " Alek stuttered – "talk to spirits?"

"Um….." Eothen wasn't much more eloquent. "I didn't start it, apparently she's an ancestor of mine. These swords I use – they were hers."

"YOU ARE RELATED TO TAIA SHENA PRETERA'SEDRIN K'TREVA?!" squeaked Alek.

"Um…yes, her youngest sister was my many-times grandmother," said Eothen. "Wait, you've heard of her?"

"You hadn't?!" said Alek. "She and Whitestar are only the most famous people in all of Velgarth, along with Urtho, Ma'ar and Vanyel. How did you not mention this to me?!"

"I kind of thought she was a myth," said Eothen. "But in any case, she's been dead for generations. How would you have heard of her?"

"History is my favorite subject," said Alek. "I love history. If I live long enough to retire from riding circuit, I want to teach history at the Collegium. And Taia was fascinating, I have read every story ever written about her."

 _:Well.:_ said Taia. _:This is embarrassing. Please tell him to not believe everything he reads, and the books always leave out the good part. Like the part where I made a wagon out of a tree with MageGift. It….was somewhat less than attractive.:_

 _:You are definitely telling me that story.:_ said Eothen.

"She says to tell you hello," said Eothen, and enjoyed watching Alek's face go pale. "She also says not to believe everything you read, and the books leave out the good parts."

"Hello," Alek squeaked. "Why can she talk to you and not me?"

"Jealous?" asked Eothen. "I must admit, it's rather inconvenient to have conversations with 'people' no one else can see, or to have to come up with reasons for how Aladrian seems to be more powerful than he is. Not that Aladrian is not wonderful, but he is not a mage. Also, you've noticed my lacerations are healed."

"Oh," said Alek. "Taia wasn't a Healer, though – "

"No," said Eothen. "But Whitestar was."

"Whitestar talks to you too?" asked Alek, incredulous.

"No," said Eothen. "Only Taia, but Whitestar can Heal me. It's how I survived the injury that gave me this gimp leg."

She decided not to mention the months of recovery where she thought she was insane, hearing this voice in her head without a physical body to attach it too. This whole situation already made her feel crazy; she didn't need to add to it.

"Did you know Whitestar was a descendant of Vanyel Ashkevron?" asked Alek, clearly star-struck.

"No," said Eothen. "But she probably knew."

"Vanyel spent a good portion of his afterlife helping Valdemar, too," said Alek.

 _:That is true.:_ said Taia. _:Both parts. It's actually how we got the idea to stick around; neither of us was quite ready to just drift off into the netherworld, but we weren't so excited about reincarnation, either.:_

 _:You've just given me so many more questions than you answered.:_ said Eothen. _:As usual.:_

 _:And unfortunately, I'm not allowed to answer them.:_ said Taia.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Eothen. She didn't see how Taia could be stopped from answering any question she wanted to; who was going to punish her? She was already dead.

 _:You have forgotten the Goddess.:_ said Taia. _:The fact that your people ignore her now does not mean she is not real.:_

Eothen would have to think about that.

"Taia says that's how they got the idea," she said aloud. "From Vanyel. Anyway, she's the one who boosted Aladrian to talk to Taver; he actually can't do it alone. And she's offering to use Farsight to locate the Guard for us."

"But why can't she speak to me directly?" Alek nearly whined.

 _:When I was alive, I was a strong enough Mindspeaker to speak to anyone I chose, whether or not they had the Gift, and from quite a distance besides.:_ said Taia. _:But as it turns out, the 'distance' between being dead and alive means I can only Mindspeak someone with the Gift, not without. And it is made easier with you because we are related.:_

"She says it's because you don't have Mindspeech," Eothen said.

"Oh," said Alek dejectedly. "I've never been so upset to only have Thoughtsensing in my life."

"Back to the problem at hand," said Eothen, who was getting a little tired of not only being a go-between between Alek and Taia, but also of being looked at as some sort of oddity for being related to a very famous dead person. Taia was certainly great, but Eothen was her own person, and intended on being treated as such.

 _:You get that from me, too.:_ said Taia.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Eothen.

"Yes, of course," said Alek, settling back a bit.

"Taia is going to look for the Guard, but we need to discuss what we are going to do if we find them," Eothen said. "And we also need to discuss what we are going to do if we don't. It's possible they are far enough away that they can't help much, anyway."

"True," said Alek. "The two of us together, with the Companions and Rika – we could put quite a dent in their defense, if it came to violence. But I'm not convinced we could defeat them. And if there is someone there doing some sort of magic – we have no idea what he is capable of. We'd be walking in unprepared completely."

"Well," said Eothen, "we don't just have the five of us. We have the seven of us."

 _:Correction.:_ said Taia. _:Whitestar can't do anything for Alek, and truthfully, neither can I. The bounds of our deal was that we were only to assist whichever of my descendent happens to be carrying the swords and is able to Hear me – not her mentor. So Whitestar can Heal you, but not Alek. I can talk to you, and those you are bonded to, but not Alek. Not even Hexen. I don't want you to make plans based on what you think I can do, and then end up in trouble because I cannot.:_

 _:If all you're supposed to do is talk to me or Heal me, aren't you already bending the rules by using your Gifts to aid Aladrian and find the Guard?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:Smart girl.:_ said Taia. _:We are allowed to use our Gifts in anything to assist you. But direct aid to Alek – such as Healing, or augmenting his Gifts – we are not allowed.:_

"Never mind," said Eothen. "Taia says they cannot do anything directly to help you, only me, because of rules and descendent and all that. So how about we let Taia find the Guard, and then base our plan on whether or not it's feasible to get anyone to help us?"

"I wish I had some powerful famous ancestor," said Alek. "But that's a good way to start. The rest of whatever we come up with depends on whether or not we can get help anyway, so there's not much point in making plans until we have that information."

 _:True enough.:_ said Taia. _:True enough.:_


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter fifteen**

As it turned out, Taia was able to find a small deployment of Guard troops within two days' ride; in the opposite direction, of course, as the village in question. But it couldn't be helped; neither Alek or Eothen thought it would be a good idea to chance going into a clearly hostile village without any sort of backup. When it was still a possibility that the attacker had followed them of his own volition, the argument could have been made that an extreme show of force would not only make them look weak but lead to hostility where there might not have actually been any. But since the attacker was not himself a mage, and had nonetheless followed them by magical means, it was apparent that there was at least one hostile member of the village that had sent him, if not more. They could not definitively prove that the man had been following by way of illusion; but since neither Companion had sensed his presence and he had been following them for a sennight, it was likely. Too likely to assume otherwise.

While Taia had been scanning for the Guard, Alek had gone into the woods and stripped the corpse of Eothen's attacker, collected the clothing and the weapon and brought it back to camp. The next morning, the odd group started off in the direction that Taia had seen the Guard; it would be a difficult trip since they had to ride at a canter to catch up the entire way. It was lucky that the Guard was only riding its circuit, not actively trying to get somewhere for a known dispute; if they had been, they would have been traveling at something other than a walk, and then one of the Heralds would have had to chase them down at a gallop to catch them. It would have been Alek, since Rika couldn't keep up with a Companion at full gallop; she could manage a canter for short periods, but she would have to catch up when they made camp as it was. Eothen felt a little bit guilty for that, but she knew there wasn't anything she could do about it, either.

 _:No worries, heartfriend.:_ said Rika. _:It will give you all a chance to get the camp set up and a fire going. I will bring dinner.:_

 _:Thank you.:_ Eothen replied.

They rode hard the first day, stopping only at midday so that Aladrian and Kasara could get some water at the stream they were passing. Alek and Eothen took the opportunity to eat some venison cold, left over from the deer Eothen had killed before being attacked; it was almost gone, but there was enough that they had a decent lunch. They too drank from the stream and filled their canteens and they were off again. Taia was busy keeping an eye on the Guard so that they would know which direction to ride as well as whether or not they were catching up, or even if the Guard picked up the pace as if they had an urgent call; it was a hard ride, but not one that involved a great deal of talking, so Eothen had plenty of time to think.

What was it, exactly, that the nobles were so afraid of losing that giving the farmers a bit of control over their lives, and the means to feed themselves, made them choose to send one of their sons to assassinate a Herald? She was aware that the position of Herald was not as well respected as it had been a few generations past, but the penalty for killing one was still death; did they really think that they would get away with it? Then she realized just how close they had come to in fact doing just that. If Rika had not shown up when she did, Eothen would have been dead, and her murderer likely long gone. Or illusioned back to a bush or whatever he had appeared to be. Alek would have spent a good deal of time searching for a murderer but wouldn't have even had a suspect; all he would have had was her dead body.

 _:Not quite true.:_ said Aladrian. _:I would have been able to share your last memories with Kasara before following you to the afterlife. So they would have had an image of your attacker. It is unlikely that they would have gotten away with killing you.:_

Hm. Well that made even less sense, except that the attacker probably didn't know that Aladrian would be able to do that.

 _:Likely he didn't.:_ said Aladrian. _:And I would have had to do it quickly, before madness set in.:_

Which led her back to her original question – what was it that the nobles were so afraid of losing, that they were willing to follow one Herald for days and kill her in retribution for making the farmers' lives livable? They didn't lose status. They didn't lose property, or even income. In fact, their income was likely to increase, since with the farmers more organized, their production would increase and therefore their income. If their income increased, the nobility also gained; the tax percentage had not changed, it was still a solid thirty percent of the farm income went to the nobility. Thirty percent of that total went to the Crown. So what did they lose, exactly? They improved their finances under Eothen's rulings, so they didn't lose money. Their status didn't change; they were still noble, whether they were wealthy in coin or only in land.

And then it came to her. Power. The nobles were losing power. The system, having once worked well enough when there were enough Heralds riding circuit to keep them relatively honest, had frayed to the point of almost complete dysfunction. Alek had been right – if the system operated as it was designed to, it worked well. Nobles provided organization for armies and trade, which grew the wealth of the entire region; the farmers and merchants provided the manpower for armies and the materials to trade, as well as foodstuffs and necessities for the entire town. But the system had devolved; since the Heralds were not able to see to the fairness and the just application of the laws, the nobility could essentially write whatever laws they wanted so long as they did not actually compete with the laws of Valdemar itself. There simply were not enough Heralds to do much more than read the new laws, if there were any, put out the fires of disputes and collect taxes.

 _:We used to have a much more noble profession.:_ said Aladrian. _:We were respected. There were so many of us that towns could send for a Herald to judge a case whenever they didn't like the options they had in front of them; now they have to settle disputes on their own, or wait sometimes for moons for one of us to come through. And they often have little choice but to be heavy-handed, if they want the dispute to not continually recur.:_

 _:And the lack of oversight means that the nobility can basically do whatever they want and there's not much we can do about it.:_ said Eothen. _:Valdemar already had the practice of allowing different towns to write their own law, as long as it didn't contradict the nation; so when the nobility establishes unjust law, we can't go against it if it doesn't actually violate our own.:_

 _:Exactly.:_ said Aladrian. _:And that used to be effective, when there were enough Heralds to ride circuit and guide the writing of those laws. But now there aren't, and the nobility does it themselves, and they do it to benefit themselves.:_

 _:And the result is that they become richer, the farmers become poorer, the merchants think they're remaining stable but they lose power and money as quickly as the nobles can write the laws. And there's nothing we can do.:_ said Eothen.

 _:Well, I don't know that it's hopeless, but we're sure having a lot of trouble.:_ said Aladrian. _:There aren't enough of us, and we're only just seeing the real cause of the problem. We haven't been able to compare notes in a long time, either, which only makes it more difficult.:_

 _:So the lawmakers in Haven don't get frequent enough updates, so they can't necessarily see the whole picture, and they can't fix a problem they can't see.:_ said Eothen.

 _:That, and the council is made up of nobility.:_ said Aladrian. _:Some of them are good, and want to be fair, but others are just like the ones we see out here; they want more money, more power, and don't see that they're destroying the very thing that gives them both.:_

Well, that was true. It was very short-sighted to tax the farmers and the merchants so highly that they couldn't survive; they were the ultimate source of the entire region's resources. They also outnumbered the nobles, and so when they finally hit the wall and couldn't be pushed any farther – they would rebel, because they had nothing left to lose. And most of the towns Eothen had visited on this circuit were right on the edge of that line, where if the nobles pushed just a little harder, the farmers would rebel. And when that happened, Valdemar would fall into chaos, just like had already happened in Karse, Hardorn, Jkatha, Rethwellan….and the only thing standing between chaos and stability were the Heralds. Like herself. And there weren't enough of them.

It seemed completely hopeless. Eothen couldn't see any way to fix the problem without more Heralds; and that didn't seem likely. Aladrian had said that there weren't as many Companions as there used to be, and without Companions, there couldn't be Heralds. Could they find some way to make people into Heralds without Companions? What defined a Herald?

 _:Aladrian, how do Companions decide who to Choose?:_ she asked.

 _:That is a very closely guarded secret.:_ Aladrian replied. Eothen maintained her presence in Aladrian's mind; she wasn't going to let him off the hook that easy. She sensed his acquiescence quickly, though. _:What I can tell you is that the Herald has to have a Gift of some sort, and be a basically moral person willing to do the right thing regardless of cost.:_

 _:Surely there are basically moral people willing to do the right thing that are not Gifted, though?:_ she asked.

 _:Of course there are.:_ said Aladrian. _:Many of them join the Guard, or become judges, or some other profession that helps the people. But not Heralds.:_

 _:But why couldn't they be trained to do the job of a Herald?:_ Eothen pressed. _:We need more of us, and we're not getting them from Companions. You yourself said you're not what you used to be, and not enough are being born. What other solution to the problem do you see?:_

 _:None.:_ conceded Aladrian. _:But Companions, as you well know, are not just a pretty ride. We also serve as guide and a second conscience to the Heralds; how to you propose to replace that?:_

Eothen didn't have an answer to that. But there had to be something, or the world was doomed to be destroyed. It had already happened in most of Velgarth; as far as she knew, Valdemar was the only functional nation left. And it would fail too, eventually; there were not enough Heralds to keep it together, and she didn't think it would be much longer before the farmers rioted.

 _:How do you have the information you use to guide us?:_ she asked. _:Couldn't you somehow put it all in a book and let people study it? It's not as effective as you in person, of course, but wouldn't it be better than nothing?:_

 _:That is….not something I can discuss.:_ Aladrian said. And he closed his mind to Eothen, so that she could not press him for further answers.

 _:Taia?:_ Eothen asked. She was not going to give up just because Aladrian wouldn't answer her questions; maybe Taia knew.

 _:Sorry, youngling.:_ Taia responded. _:These are excellent questions; unfortunately, I am not allowed to answer them either. But please believe me, if I gave you the answer – it would not solve your problem.:_

 _:Then what am I supposed to do?:_ Eothen said. _:I'm supposed to hold the world together; but I can't see any solution to the problem. I cannot rewrite the laws of all of Valdemar, let alone all of Velgarth.:_

 _:Of course not.:_ replied Taia.

 _:Then what?:_ said Eothen. She was really getting frustrated; she couldn't get the answers to the questions she was asking, but she was supposed to hold the world together? Fix the problems that were tearing the nations apart, and threatened to destroy her adopted nation as well? How? The only idea she had, to replace Heralds with ordinary, well-trained people, was not going to be possible without the Companions' help; they were unwilling to give it. What kind of guide was that, what kind of defender of Valdemar cared more about their own secrets than the survival of the land they supposedly defended?

 _:Careful.:_ said Aladrian. _:Taia told you the answer to that question would not solve your problem. She was telling the truth. Do not let your frustration lead you to blame the wrong people; Companions have been defending and dying for Valdemar since long before even Taia was born. We have not stopped.:_

Eothen sighed. That much was true. She could not actually believe that the Companions would withhold information that would save Valdemar just to save their own secrets. But what, then? What was she supposed to do? She didn't even have her Whites; she would be granted them, on successful completion of her mentorship field circuit. But the way these villages were on the edge of devolving into a scrabbling mess, she wasn't even sure she would finish before the world collapsed around her.

 _:It is not as close as that.:_ said Taia. _:You do not see the other Heralds holding villages together, carefully rewriting laws and righting wrongs in other parts of Valdemar. It is still coming, but it is not coming tomorrow. You have time.:_

 _:But how much?:_ Eothen asked. _:And how am I supposed to find a solution by then?:_

 _:I don't know.:_ said Taia. _:Foresight was never one of my Gifts. Whitestar's either, for that matter. I dare say if it had been, some of my exploits would have turned out quite a bit differently, but there you have it. All I can tell you is that it is not coming that quickly.:_

 _:I am inadequate to this task.:_ said Eothen. _:I am one person. Not even a full Herald. I don't even have a strong Gift. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do.:_

 _:Nor do I, youngling.:_ said Taia. _:Nor do I. I only know that the world is falling apart, and the Goddess tells me that you are the one who will put it to rights. She does not tell me how. Only that your survival is paramount.:_

 _:I don't know whether or not I like this Goddess.:_ said Eothen. _:She needs to be a bit more forthcoming, if She wants my help.:_

Taia chuckled. _:Deities are like that.:_ she said. _:Much like their avatars.:_

What? Avatars? What was an avatar, and had she ever seen one?

 _:What do you think the Grove Born Companion is?:_ asked Taia.

 _:What is that?:_ asked Eothen. _:Some sort of king of the Companions?:_

 _:Oh dear.:_ said Taia. _:I didn't realize that so much has been forgotten. Grove Born Companions are almost entirely limited to the Monarch's Own's Companion, so Rolan is the only one you have right now. In my time, there were two, but that was unusual.:_

 _:Why were there two?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:First Herald-Mage in a long time, the powers decided she should have one.:_ said Taia. Which answered absolutely nothing, but Eothen sensed that it wasn't really important to the point. _:They just sort of…..appear. No one is really sure how, except for that Grove Born, how it happens, but they are avatars. Messengers of the Deities. That was the origin of all of the first Companions; they were the answer to King Valdemar's prayer for help in making sure the line of succession only included those worthy of rule, and didn't devolve into corruption like the monarchy they had just escaped.:_

Huh. Well, Eothen supposed that explained how they could provide guidance, and why they wouldn't just be able to come together and have their knowledge written into a book. Which just led her back to her original problem, and with even less of an idea of a solution. Replacing Heralds and Companions with well-trained and well-vetted ordinary people on really good horses – maybe Shin'a'in, even – had seemed like an adequate, if not ideal, solution. And they may yet do just that, but it would never be a solution to truly replicate the system they had. Maybe a second string or something…..Herald augmentation, Heraldic assistants, to gradually introduce to the realm, and if someday the Heralds themselves ceased to exist – well, they'd already be accepted as authorities, and that might be better than nothing….but would it be enough? She didn't know.

 _:That actually is not a bad idea.:_ said Taia. _:In fact, Vanyel did something very similar. He was the last Herald-Mage of his time; they re-emerged in mine, but that's another tale for another time. Vanyel got so overstretched by the people thinking they needed a Herald-Mage when all they really needed was a Herald, and there weren't enough of the mages, that he got the people to forget magic ever even existed. Maybe you could start something like that.:_

 _:Finally. An idea I can use.:_ said Eothen.

She just hoped she had enough time to do it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter sixteen**

It took almost a full three days to catch up with the Guard, instead of the two and a half they had hoped for; the second day, it rained. All day long. So by the time they actually caught up with their quarry, the Companions covered in almost enough mud to look like regular horses, and it took a bit of work to convince their Captain, a tough middle aged woman named Caryli, that they were actual Heralds and not just trying to play a trick on her. In the end, it was their exhaustion that convinced her; no random criminal would work that hard just to pull a fast one over on a Guard that could easily take out two fighters.

"Well met, then," said Caryli. "How do you want this to go, Heralds? I don't think riding into town with the entire Guard right off the start is a good plan, but what are your ideas?"

"Uh, yes, uh, you're right," coughed Alek. Eothen looked at him strangely; it wasn't normal for him to be tongue tied with anyone, much less a woman. An attractive man, perhaps; but not a woman. She resolved to ask him about it later, and perhaps tease him mercilessly. They needed something to laugh about, after all.

"I think that Eothen and I should ride in to the town center and drop the evidence on the ground," he said. "See how they react. They don't have to know you guys are surrounding the town, and we can send you a signal if we need to have you ride in."

"I am not taking an entire Guard on a sennight long march in the wrong direction just to _maybe_ be needed," Caryli said, obviously annoyed by the suggestion. "But your plan does have merit. I will bring the Guard, and most of them will stand surrounding the town as you say. But myself and a group of my choosing will ride into town with you."

"Fine," said Alek. "That sounds like a better plan. Thank you."

"We both find it so shocking that they would send out an assassin against us that perhaps we were being overly hesitant on confronting them about it," said Eothen. "But it is evening; shall we make camp together? My _kyree_ partner has brought down a warthog, and says she can easily bring us a deer while that roasts. Will you join us?"

" _Kyree_?" said Caryli. "I thought they were just a myth. You know one?"

Eothen was at least as shocked that the Captain had heard of a _kyree_ as the Captain was that Eothen knew one.

"She is the last of her kind," said Eothen. "She is the one who actually rescued me from my would-be assassin; I'm ashamed to say that I broke my own cardinal rule and went deer hunting without a real weapon. She came out of nowhere at the last moment and here we are."

"Well, I'm sorry there aren't more of her, but I'll welcome some fresh meat," said Caryli. "Please thank her for me."

"She will be here with the warthog by the time we have the tents set up, and will get the deer while we set up the fire pit to roast it," said Eothen.

"Efficient, too," said Caryli. "I like this friend of yours."

They got to work setting up their tents in a field another candlemark away; Alek and Eothen got to work brushing the now-dried dirt out of Aladrian and Kasara's coat. By the time they were done, Rika was there with the warthog; she dropped it off at Eothen's feet and was off again for the deer.

 _:I've been watching it all the way here, it's just a short distance away; I'll bring it down, then be back to rest on my laurels. I expect some good organ meat for this.:_ she said.

 _:And it shall be yours, all you like.:_ replied Eothen. In fact, Eothen was thrilled that organ meat was Rika's favorite; she didn't like it at all, and so it was convenient that each got exactly what they wanted and nothing went to waste. _:I'd like the hide, though; I still need new breeches.:_

 _:Fair enough.:_ said Rika.

Eothen got to work preparing the warthog. She gutted it, saving the organ meats she knew Rika liked best, and set aside the haunches for herself and Alek. Then she took the shoulder and rib meats to Caryli to distribute among her officers; the regular soldiers would get the venison. This wasn't because one meat was inherently better or more liked than the other; there was more venison than pork, and so it made sense to distribute the more plentiful meat to the common soldier, of which there were more, and the pork to the officers, of which there were fewer. This way no one could find a way to speculate about special treatment or getting shortchanged. It seemed silly, Eothen thought, to be so concerned with whether or not a soldier would make claims based on what meat he got; but she realized that when she was a merc, fights had broken out over even more trivial matters, so she agreed that it was more sensible to make sure none of those ideas could have a chance to take root.

"Hey, Alek," she said in a teasing voice. "What's with the nervousness talking to the Captain earlier? I'd swear you'd given up Malak for women, if I didn't know better."

"Oh, hellfires!" Alek exclaimed. "I have no idea. She's clearly female. But for a moment she looked a bit like a man, and I confess, in that moment where I wasn't sure – I found her attractive. Please don't tell!"

Eothen laughed. "I'd never tell," she said honestly. "If I went for women, I'd find her attractive myself. There's just something about – "

"A person in uniform?" Alek joked back. "Yes, I agree. But there's also something about her in particular, isn't there?"

 _:How do you think she got to be a Captain so fast?:_ asked Taia.

 _:What do you mean? She isn't capable?:_ Eothen asked, confused.

 _:Of course she is.:_ said Taia. _:She's quite competent. But she's also very charismatic. Maybe a low-level Bardic Gift, to small to train, I'm not sure. She inspires people to follow her. It's a good thing she IS competent, actually, and a genuinely good person; otherwise, she could do a lot of damage.:_

 _:Was Ma'ar charismatic?:_ asked Eothen. _:Is that how he got so many people to follow him way back in the days of the Mage Wars?:_

Taia was silent for a long time, which confused Eothen. She wasn't sure why this should be such a difficult question; after all, Taia never even knew Ma'ar. She hadn't been born yet, so it was more or less speculation anyway.

 _:Yes.:_ said Taia, at long last. _:Yes, he was very charismatic, in all his incarnations. He made himself that way, and he used it for many…many nefarious purposes.:_

Incarnations? What did that mean? Ma'ar was…Ma'ar, right? There was only one, right? But Taia was strangely silent on the matter, and though Eothen tried to ask her more than once, would not answer her questions.

 _:Aladrian?:_ she asked. _:What did she mean, incarnations?:_

 _:Ma'ar actually created a spell whereas if one of his – many – descendants cast a certain low-level spell, his spirit would take over the body of that descendant.:_ said Aladrian. _:He actually lived many different lives. He was Ma'ar first…..he was Leareth in Vanyel's time. He was Mornelithe Falconsbane in Taia's. There were others. Taia…..had some rather unpleasant experiences with Falconsbane. You'd do well not to mention it. I don't know what happened, really, just rumors; but you'd do well to avoid the topic.:_

 _:Oh.:_ said Eothen. She then wondered whether or not this Ma'ar character was the one behind whoever had sent her assassin; after all, Ma'ar was an evil mage, and whoever had cast the illusion spell would also be an evil mage, right?

 _:No.:_ said Aladrian. _:First, Ma'ar is well and truly dead; Taia herself devised the plan that finally got Velgarth rid of him. Second, this mage is not necessarily evil; he may just be afraid, and trying to keep the world as he knows it. Or maybe he just craves power. But he is not necessarily evil, not as Ma'ar was.:_

Eothen supposed that was true. And also a good thing; if the mage really were Ma'ar, there was no one who could defeat him anymore, since there were no more mages. Except for this one. But if there was one, there had to be others, right? They couldn't _really_ have all disappeared. Just….there were fewer of them, and no one to train them. Just like there were fewer people with Gifts of other kinds. So if there were other mages somewhere, untrained and maybe not as strong as in the old days, where were they? And could they help her to save Valdemar, like Taia kept telling her was her destiny?

 _:We have been looking for them for decades.:_ said Aladrian. _:I don't know why this one escaped our notice, but if there were more to be found, we would have found them.:_

 _:Could there be another explanation for how the assassin tracked us then?:_ said Eothen.

 _:I suppose he could have had a Gift for invisibility or teleportation, although I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone having either of those.:_ said Rika.

 _:But that does not necessarily mean that such Gifts do not exist.:_ said Eothen. _:I mean, I don't know that I would reveal an invisibility Gift, particularly if I discovered I had it as a teenage boy.:_

 _:Excellent point.:_ said Rika. _:A teenage boy, with all his hormones, has every reason not to reveal that little secret.:_

 _:I think it makes more sense than a mage that's gone undetected, with as much as the Companions have been searching for them.:_ said Eothen.

 _:Excellent point.:_ said Aladrian. _:I was beginning to think that we had failed, all these years, and that failure had led to your near-assassination; I much prefer the idea of just a regular unidentified Gift, instead. Much more palatable.:_

Eothen had to agree. First, it didn't just give her more confidence in the Companions as a whole; it gave her more confidence that they would be able to root out who had sent the assassin and eliminate them. It even made it possible again that the assassin had struck out on his own, instead of having been sent in the first place, which was a much more pleasant idea than a conspiracy against Valdemar's Heralds and the law. She knew that their position in Valdemar wasn't quite what it used to be; but people still generally respected Heralds, and she had a hard time believing the villagers were actively conspiring against them. She spent the rest of the evening considering the possibilities as she scraped and prepared the animal hides for travel, then rolled them up and hit her bedroll; she was asleep before her eyes even closed.

The next morning they packed up early. They wanted to be back to the offending village as quickly as possible; if they traveled at pace, they would make it in just under a sennight. But it was not to be; it was late autumn, and the weather quite unpredictable. There were thunderstorms, first, and then the rain froze on the ground and turned quickly to ice overnight; it melted by noon, but the mornings were quite slippery for travel, and afternoons were full of mud. And all of it was cold, wet and unpleasant. By evening, the Heralds appeared to be nothing more than common soldiers wearing brown garb and riding brown horses; the Guard were similarly outfitted, despite their blue uniforms. At this rate, they were going to get to the offending village looking like a bunch of drowned rats; hardly the impression they were going for.

On the third day of trudging through the mud and the rain, the troupe was moving along at as ambitious a pace as they were able; everyone was tired, grimy and cold. No one was paying much attention to their surroundings; it was a road, like any other, with trees on one side and farmland on the other. No villages around, just the occasional farmhouse, and no one out working in the fields either, for that matter; it was too wet. Any crops that had not been gathered before the rains set in had been long spoiled, and any farm animal with any sense at all were in their barns, which left only sheep mucking around in the fields. It was a good thing the ground was level, in these parts; sheep were notorious for drowning each other, trying to climb on each other's backs in a flood. Even so, Eothen was just starting to think it was a little strange that they hadn't seen anyone at all in candlemarks; even in this weather, this was a main road. There should have been at least one fellow traveler hurrying to get to wherever he was headed, but they hadn't seen a soul in days.

Just as she was about to mention something, an arrow came flying from the woods and landed in the arm of one of the guards. The guards immediately surrounded the Heralds and everyone drew their swords; but the enemy remained unseen. No matter how Eothen squinted and stared into the woods, she saw no sign of whoever their enemy was. Eothen felt vaguely guilty that the Guards were to the man preparing themselves to die in service of protecting the Heralds; were they really that much more important? Not if Eothen managed to implement her half-formed plan of replacing Heralds with well-trained and educated Guard, kind of a Guard-elite, but she supposed that at this point, a Herald was harder to replace than a Guardsman so it could not be helped. Still.

 _:Aladrian?:_ she asked. _:Anything?:_

 _:No.:_ came his frustrated reply. _:I can vaguely sense that there is someone there, but I cannot pinpoint them. Not well enough for a charge into the trees.:_

Well that was true, a blind charge at an unseen army in the woods was suicide. They didn't even know how many enemies there were, and they'd be charging as just a couple of Heralds and a handful of Guard. Similarly, it would have been suicide for their enemy to charge into the open field; Eothen and her small band would drop them with arrows before they made it halfway. They were at an impasse.

 _:Not quite.:_ said Taia. _:I think I can help. I cannot directly attack them, that would be breaking the rules; like the Goddess Herself, I am not allowed to do things for you. I can only assist after you've exhausted your own abilities. Anyway. There is a leader to their band.:_

An image formed in Eothen's head of what Taia saw; it was a small band of about twenty soldiers, dressed in a strange tightly-woven kind of cloth, a kind of bluish-greenish-grey shimmery material that would blend in to basically anything. She could see that the general soldiers were on foot, with sickles instead of swords, but there was one man riding – a _chirra_? Is that what that was?

 _:Yes.:_ said Taia. _:That is a_ chirra _. And those people are Ur'nomi, a tribal people that I thought we were allied with. They nearly defeated myself and Whitestar when we were playing bodyguard to the heirs on their circuit – oh, nevermind. That's too long a story for the moment. Get out your bow and nock an arrow. I'm going to help you aim so that your arrow hits that leader.:_

Eothen did what she was told; Alek looked at her strangely, but didn't ask questions. Eothen plucked the feathers on her arrow as Taia instructed. The feathers acted as a rudder on the arrow and 'steered' it in a particular direction, based on the wind; Eothen herself wasn't bad at figuring out exactly how to pluck them to get the desired result, but she wasn't great at it, either. Taia had been, so Eothen had no doubt that this arrow would be plucked just exactly right. She nocked her arrow and then proceeded to raise and lower her bow, moving it just so, until Taia told her to pull her string and exactly when to fire; then they waited.

Seconds later, they could hear a cry of surprise in the woods; apparently, Eothen had made the shot successfully.

 _:Did you really expect otherwise?:_ said Taia. _:The stories about me might leave out the good parts, but the basic idea – I really was a legendary warrior, you know.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ said Eothen. _:I did not, actually, expect otherwise. I'm not a bad shot myself, ghost.:_

 _:That is true, and had it been otherwise, I doubt it would have been successful, so we're even.:_ said Taia.

The rest of the enemy army seemed to be in disarray; they started charging out of the woods at the Guard and Heralds, but not in any particular formation. It was easy to pick them off at this point; a waste of perfectly good arrows, perhaps, but no injury – other than the original arrow to the Guardsman's arm – was sustained, and the enemy was completely destroyed.

Now to figure out why, exactly, a purported ally of Valdemar had attacked them in the first place.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter seventeen**

They spent the rest of that day collecting the bodies of their enemy, including the leader that Eothen had taken down in the woods. The _chirra_ was frightened, but unharmed; they decided to take it with them, as it could not survive on their own in this region, and likely sell it. They burned the bodies on a pyre after removing the uniforms for evidence; there was plenty of wood in the nearby forest. Unlike Eothen's sole attacker, there were far too many corpses to leave for the carrion. The local farmers would not appreciate that. Also, it was just uncivilized, and if they weren't civilized, then what was she trying to save?

When they were finished, it was too late and they were too exhausted to continue marching anyway, so they set up camp for the night and cooked the warthog and pheasants that Rika had brought them for dinner. In the morning, they were ready to continue; they still had a long way to go, and they needed to get this done quickly so that both the Heralds and the Guard could get back on their planned routes. The weather, at least, cooperated; there was no more rain, and the mud dried up just as they arrived at the site they'd selected for their campsite. It was about two candlemarks ride out of the village; they wanted to be far enough out that if they had to make a run for it, they'd have time to hopefully stop and collect their gear, but close enough that they wouldn't be exhausted by the time they rode in to confront the village. They also decided that Alek and Eothen would ride into the center of town, apparently alone, and demand to see the headman. They would confront him, and based on the response, Rika would bring the Guard in to assist if needed.

:foolish and the Guard would not be needed.

On the appointed day, Eothen and Alek rode in on their Companions, side by side, to the center of town in full gear. The village, noticing the sudden appearance of two Heralds, ground to a stop in its activity while the citizens began slowly walking to the town center as well.

"We are here to speak to your mayor," said Alek loudly and rather firmly. "Regarding this."

He dropped the uniform of Eothen's would-be assassin on the ground in front of them. There was a gasp from the crowd; clearly, they recognized it. That was not promising. If they hadn't recognized it, there would have just been silence, some confused looks, and maybe expectant muttering of questions. But this crowd gasped, and looked surprised; come to think of it, thought Eothen, they looked at her like they were seeing a ghost. This crowd knew what that uniform represented. They were in on it. But there was no sense in confronting the crowd with that information just now; they didn't want to start a riot. The mayor arrived, and Eothen noticed he was wearing clothing with the same kind of unusual weave that the assassin's uniform had been. That was strange. Why hadn't they noticed this when they were here on circuit? It was an unusual enough weave that Eothen was surprised they hadn't.

 _:That reminds me…..:_ said Taia. Eothen waited, rather impatiently, for Taia to continue.

 _:Yes, oh wise and dead one? It reminds you of what, exactly?:_ Eothen said.

 _:Sorry.:_ said Taia. _:It reminds me of a tribe we encountered, some three decades before my death. The Ur'nomi. They had vastly superior mage skills to ours, and building, and wove their clothing like that. But their negotiation skills were lacking; they attacked and destroyed any clan or tribe that had what they wanted. They tried killing us, while we were playing bodyguard to the then-heirs on their trainee circuit. But we became allies with them after that.:_

 _:Something about that last part seems a bit fishy.:_ said Eothen. _:They attacked tribes for what they wanted, but then became your allies?:_

 _:Now that you mention it, you're right. It does seem a bit off, from this perspective…..:_ said Taia.

 _:Just a bit.:_ said Eothen ironically. She was surprised; it seemed obvious to her that a tribe of people who had attacked the heirs of Valdemar and were used to killing for what they wanted would just suddenly decide to become allies instead.

 _:Valdemar…was a bit naïve then.:_ said Taia.

 _:You think?:_ said Eothen.

 _:We were pretty used to people who seemed less developed than we were wanting to become part of our society.:_ said Taia. _:It never occurred to us that these people might have other ideas.:_

 _:You said they had superior mage skills.:_ said Eothen. _:That doesn't seem terrifically less developed to me. And building skills, as well.:_

 _:Yes, well.:_ said Taia. If ghosts could blush, Taia was blushing. _:It was at the height of the nation's strength. We had defeated Ancar, we had become allies with our longtime enemy of Karse, we had destroyed the Empire. We were pretty convinced of our own…..superiority.:_

 _:And that is precisely when a person is at their most vulnerable.:_ said Eothen. _:First lesson of being a fighter, and Valdemar failed it.:_

 _:Valdemar was founded on idealism, and its laws reflect that.:_ said Taia. _:Its failure was that it assumed the best, not the worst, of its neighbors. Yes, it failed that lesson; Valdemar was not founded as a fighting nation, but a defensive one. It certainly isn't perfect, but that philosophy worked for a long time.:_

 _:And the fact that it was founded on idealism, which for the most part was successful, led them to trust people far too easily.:_ said Eothen.

 _:I was on that fighting party that first approached the Ur'nomi.:_ said Taia. _:I should have seen through them. We went fully prepared for a battle, but they appeared genuinely happy to negotiate instead. Still.:_

 _:Well, I suppose it's an understandable mistake to make.:_ said Eothen. _:And it doesn't much matter anymore, we're here now.:_

 _:Too true.:_ said Taia. _:Too true.:_

"Do you recognize this uniform?" Alek asked the mayor in a tone that implied that he knew the answer was yes.

"That uniform belonged to Rodrik," said the mayor. "My nephew. What has happened to him?"

"He's dead," said Eothen coldly. "After ambushing and trying to murder me in the forest."

"How did he come to be there?" asked Alek, equally coldly.

"I sent him," said the mayor. This was too easy, thought Eothen; what was the catch?

"Why?" asked Eothen. "Why would you have sent your nephew to murder a Herald? You know the punishment for that is death. And you can't have possibly been expecting to get away with it. Why would you have done it?"

She didn't mention just how close they had actually been to getting away with it. Had Rika not appeared when she had, Eothen would be dead, Aladrian would have only maybe been able to communicate what had happened before he followed….and her murderer would just disappear, the same way he had not been traceable while he was tracking them.

"We're tired of you Heralds riding in here on your high horses and trying to tell us how to live," said the mayor.

"You are citizens of Valdemar," said Alek. "As such, you are subject to Valdemar's laws. Nothing more has ever been asked of you, and nothing less. Having admitted freely that you sent an assassin to kill a Herald, I sentence you to death. However, there will be a trial to determine the guilt or innocence of the rest of the town – "

But Alek never got the chance to finish. There was a moment where it seemed like sound was pulling in on itself, and the mayor raised his arm as if to throw something – and Alek collapsed in his saddle. Kasara screamed as if she herself had been hit, but instead she charged the mayor in an attack – but was held still, by some invisible barrier. She continued to scream her frustration, prancing around looking for a way through.

 _:What in the nine hells?!:_ Eothen asked Taia.

 _:The mayor.:_ Taia replied. _:He's a mage. He's not a very powerful one, by the standards of my time, but since there hasn't been one in generations – he was able to get off his attack before the Companions could sense it coming. He actually attacked you, too; I'm keeping you shielded. He's very frustratedly continuing to attack you, he can't figure out why he's unsuccessful.:_

 _:Thank you.:_ said Eothen as she summoned Rika to bring the Guard.

 _:Aladrian, is Alek dead?:_ she asked.

 _:No.:_ said Aladrian. _:He is badly injured, but he is not dead. But Kasara cannot get through that mage barrier, and once the mage gives up on attacking you, he will go back to Alek; Alek cannot take another hit.:_

 _:So let's take him out.:_ said Eothen.

Eothen pulled one of her knives from her boot and threw it at the mage; by now, the rest of the town was armed, and pitched battle was imminent. The knife was deflected by an invisible barrier, and Eothen no longer had time to spend on the mage. She pulled both her swords and fought for her life, as Aladrian bit and kicked at their attackers as hard as he could. Kasara was doing the same against the fighters who were trying to kill her with less-than magical means, but these townspeople were unexpectedly trained for battle. It would be a losing fight, soon, unless the Guard arrived in time.

 _:Don't worry.:_ said Rika. _:We are almost there.:_

Eothen parried the attacker on her left and took out the one on her right, but not before they left a severe gash in her bad leg; she cried out, but there was nothing she could do about it at the moment. She just had to hope she didn't bleed to death before the Guard arrived to rescue them.

 _:If you can hold on until the end of the battle, Whitestar can keep that from happening; I am too busy shielding you from that mage to act as channel for her, at the moment.:_ said Taia.

Figured. She could either bleed to death from her leg, or die of Goddess-knows-what was caused by that mage attack.

 _:Settle down:_ said Taia. _:It's not always about you.:_

Well, that was true enough, and Eothen continued to parry and attack until after what seemed like several lifetimes, the Guard – and Rika – finally arrived. The townspeople had been trained for battle, that was true; but so were the Guard, and they were mad. They quickly surrounded the townspeople, and after a few moments, the battle was over; there were a few injuries, some severe, that the Guard sustained. But the townspeople were destroyed. They weren't all killed, but none of them would be unmarked. Many were missing limbs, or eyes, and more would die of infection or blood loss before any chirurgeon could arrive. That was not Eothen's concern; this town had conspired to assassinate a Herald, and the penalty for that was death. Had they not then followed that up by attacking herself and Alek, they would have been convicted and hanged.

Since they had followed up that failed assassination by openly attacking the both of them, and so those that had survived this battle, if they were lucky, would be sentenced to a work detail at hard labor, likely for the rest of their likely short lives. The Guard would see them delivered to the nearest court. The mage was her only concern, now. She turned around just in time to see Caryli leap from her horse and bury her short-sword in the mage's back. The mage went down fast, and Caryli somersaulted back to the ground. Eothen just sat there on Aladrian's back, slack-jawed, with the knife she had planned on throwing at the mage in her hand.

 _:Now that was a move I might have made back in the day.:_ said Taia.

 _:And I suppose before my leg was gimp, I might have been able to as well, but that doesn't make it less amazing.:_ Eothen replied.

 _:Whitestar wants me to tell you that that IS a move I made back in the day, but it almost never ended without injury to myself.:_ said Taia. _:Now hold still, Whitestar is going to Heal your leg.:_

Eothen did as she was told, and soon she felt a sense of warmth in her bleeding leg. A few moments later, the bleeding had stopped, and her leg was freshly scarred and would reopen with too much activity, but she was no longer in danger of bleeding to death.

 _:Wow.:_ said Eothen. _:If she can do that from the afterlife, she must have been amazing when she was alive.:_

 _:She was the most powerful Healer in all of history, at least that we know of.:_ said Taia.

 _:Will you two please stop with the random chatter?:_ said Aladrian. _:Alek is going to die if we don't help him soon, and neither I or Kasara know how.:_

 _:Do you?:_ Eothen asked Taia.

 _:No.:_ said Taia. _:Whitestar does. But you know the rule – we can help you. Not Alek.:_

 _:Can Whitestar tell Aladrian how to do it?:_ Eothen asked. _:Maybe he and Kasara could Heal him, if they knew how.:_

There was silence, then, for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, after Eothen was sure that Alek would die before Taia came back with an answer, she responded.

 _:Whitestar agrees.:_ Taia said. _:We can't see any reason that giving Aladrian education would violate the rule.:_

 _:Good.:_ said Eothen. _:Quick, now. Please.:_

There was another long period of silence. Eothen could sense a slight 'buzzing', which she knew meant that Taia and Aladrian were Mindspeaking each other, but she couldn't hear them. Every now and then, Aladrian would nod his head or stomp the ground with a foreleg, in response to what he was told. Finally, when Eothen could hardly stand it any longer, the buzzing stopped. Aladrian nodded his head and walked over to where Kasara was waiting with as much patience as she could possibly have, knowing that the life of her Chosen – as well as her own – depended on the information that Aladrian was getting, and how quickly he could share it with her, and then how quickly they could do whatever Whitestar was instructing them to do by way of Taia as channel. Another silence, more buzzing, and then Eothen could almost see a kind of glow around the Companions.

Alek was on the ground between them, their noses lowered towards him. His breathing was shallow; Eothen wasn't sure this – whatever this was – was going to work, but all she could do was wait. She watched carefully. Was his breathing getting better? Was his color improving? Or was it just her imagination? She tried to be patient, but it was never one of her virtues. Finally, after what seemed like several lifetimes, the glow faded and both Companions lifted their heads – slightly. They were exhausted. Kasara lay down next to her Chosen while Aladrian slowly backed up a few paces before he, too, lay down on the ground. Eothen walked up to where Alek was lying just as he opened his eyes; she expected to tease him about finally returning to the land of the living, but when she looked at his face, she stopped short.

His once-dark hair was white. His deep brown eyes were now the palest blue. And there was nothing of his previous intelligence in them. He stared back at her without any sign of recognition or sense. What had happened? Was he gone forever, sentenced to breathe in this shell that had once been Alek? Did the Healing not work? Had Whitestar made a mistake, or had the Companions? She didn't know. And Taia was silent in her head, despite her questions; the Companions were too exhausted to speak. She would just have to wait.

She was getting really tired of waiting.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter eighteen**

The town, at least, was no longer a danger to anyone. There were a few women and children left, but no men of fighting age were left without permanent injury. They would not be mounting any kind of rebellion any time soon. The guard, after they were finished patching up their own injuries as best they could, found wagons and horses to pull them. One for the women and children, who would be taken somewhere else to be questioned as well as taken care of, one for the injured but surviving townsmen to be taken to prison, and one for the injured guard that could no longer ride. This town, as part of its punishment for treason, would no longer exist. The women, if found to be innocent of any wrongdoing, would be housed by a religious order of some kind until they could get their bearings and figure out what they wanted to do; but they would not be allowed to found their own town. They would need to live in an area where their children could attend a larger school, so they would be exposed to a proper education instead of the treasonous education they had been receiving. If the women were found guilty, their children would become wards of Valdemar and the women would go to prison alongside their husbands. Their punishments would range from hard labor, if physically sound, to lifetime confinement if not, to hanging, depending on the severity of their involvement.

Eothen was not terribly concerned about the townspeople; they had conspired to kill her, after all, and had reacted to confrontation by engaging in treasonous battle with two Heralds and the Valdemaran Guard. They knew what they were doing and they knew the punishment for it. She did wonder, however, why. Were they really that disgruntled with Valdemar? What, precisely, was the problem? She knew there was a growing resentment of the nobility towards the commoners, and vice versa, but this had not seemed to be about that. This was nobility and commoner alike, attacking Valdemaran forces, and she didn't know why. But more than that, she was worried about Alek. Aladrian wasn't talking; he was completely exhausted from the Healing. Rika was injured, and was being seen to by the Guard medic – Eothen had a sneaking suspicion that Whitestar was helping him out a bit – and wasn't able to communicate with her, and since Taia was providing the channel to Whitestar, she was likewise unavailable. Alek himself certainly wasn't going to be able to offer her an answer, and Kasara was as exhausted as Aladrian.

So instead of sitting on her thumbs, Eothen picked up her bow – and a good sword, this time – and went off in search of dinner. They could find bread and fruit in the town's storehouses, and even meat; they had cattle. But they needed butchering, so Eothen set to work on finding an appropriate candidate. Having found an older steer, she quickly dispatched him and cleaned the meat, and brought it to the guardmember – Rysen – that had designated herself as camp cook.

"Thank ye kindly," said Rysen. There was something familiar about the way Rysen spoke, the particular accent she had – but Eothen couldn't quite place it. "Where I come from, they's more sheep than cattle; I dinna ken how to butcher it right, meself, when I first come here."

That's when it hit Eothen – Rysen's accent was similar to Rozem's, her old mercenary friend. She wondered if they were from the same land.

"I don't suppose that where you come from was inordinately green and had a lot of sturdy ponies?" she asked. It was a strange question, she knew, but she had no other way of finding out.

"Nay, lassie, I'm not, but I do ken where ye be talkin' about," said Rysen. "That be the island not far from me own. Me land is similar green, but more hills and mountains."

"Ah," said Eothen. "I don't mean to pry; I had a friend from that green land once. I don't even know where it is or what it's called, but your accent sounded similar."

"Aye, lassie," said Rysen with a grin. She pushed her bright orange hair out of her face while she cut the beef into manageable pieces. "We be descended from the same peoples, and speak a similar language. Our ancestors just settled on different islands. We still take trips across the sea at times and take wives or husbands."

"His name is Rozem," said Eothen. "He was a good fighter, until he got injured badly enough that he couldn't do it anymore. He turned cook, too."

"Aye," said Rysen. "That be not surprising. Well, lassie, this be done cookin' in a candlemark, I'll be seein' ye then."

Eothen knew a dismissal when she heard one, so she took herself over to where the bodies of the dead townsmen were being prepared for their pyre. And that's when she noticed it – their clothing. It was the same weave as the clothing that the Ur'nomi, the ones who had attacked them in the forest, were wearing. Which meant…..they were working together. But those men in the forest, she had looked at their faces; none of them had been members of the town. So they couldn't have been working together from the town itself. Which meant this rebellion, whatever the reason for it, was much bigger than just this town. And with Alek out of commission, that left her as the only Herald aware of that fact. She needed to get back to Haven, to warn the Crown, to hopefully help them find a solution; but how? She was still on her internship. She hadn't actually finished it, she wasn't even a full Herald. But how COULD she finish? Alek was certainly in no position to mentor her anymore. And if they were confronted with another town that started a rebellion, she was a good fighter but couldn't successfully defend herself against an entire town.

There was no help for it. They must return to Haven, internship or no, Whites or no. Eothen was sad that she wouldn't get the chance to finish her internship, but at the same time she felt that the crisis she saw unfolding was too urgent to wait. She didn't know why these people were starting to openly revolt against the Heralds, but the problem was no longer just a growing divide between noble and peasant; there were people actively working to sow division and encourage rebellion. That was information that could not wait to be delivered some moons later to the council, that was information they needed to have now. Yesterday, even. And since the Companions no longer had the power to communicate with Taver from whatever distance, that meant that as soon as Alek had recovered enough to be tied to Kasara's back, they needed to return to Haven at all possible speed. The only question that remained was whether or not they needed an accompaniment of Guard.

So in order to answer that question, Eothen went to find Caryli. She was the Captain of the Guard, and an intelligent woman as well; plus, Eothen just wanted to talk to someone about her observations, hopefully to have that person tell her she was being ridiculous and seeing shadows where there were none. After much searching, she found Caryli sitting in front of her own tent, absentmindedly chewing on some dried venison while staring at the fire in front of her. Odd. Why was the Guard Captain sitting alone, and why did she look so dejected?

"Heyla," Eothen greeted the Captain. "What's got you looking so morose?"

"This revolt," said Caryli. "It isn't just this one town. It's all over Valdemar."

"So I'm not just paranoid," said Eothen. " _Sheka._ "

"Either that, or we both are," said Caryli. "and with the same imagination, too. Not bloody likely."

"But let's back up," said Eothen. "Think about this logically. Maybe if we put my paranoid delusions up against yours, we'll either figure out what's going on or prove ourselves wrong."

"Ha," snorted Caryli. "Would that we could prove ourselves wrong, but that's a good place to start, anyway. What have you seen?"

"Well," began Eothen, "I suppose I could start at the beginning. I started as a mercenary, for the Fire Eagles."

"That explains how someone without her Whites fights like a seasoned soldier," said Caryli. "I was wondering."

Eothen blushed. "Thanks," she said. "I might have tried that move you made on the mage, before my gimp leg, but it probably wouldn't have succeeded or looked nearly as impressive."

"Ha!" said Caryli. "That was mostly luck, but I'm told that it's a move often taught in the mercenary troupes, ever since some long-ago warrior tried it against a bull rider. I learned it from an ex-merc myself."

Eothen thought about that for a moment, remembering what Taia had told her about doing that move back in her day. That would be a crazy coincidence, she decided, if Caryli had learned it from an ex-Fire Eagle who had learned it as something passed down from Taia herself; stranger things had happened. But back to the task at hand.

"I saw the disintegration of our surrounding nations firsthand. I didn't understand why it was happening, but when I came to Valdemar, and started my field circuit, I noticed the increasing gap between the nobility and the peasants, and I know that there's a lot of anger and desperation about it," said Eothen.

"I have seen the same thing," said Caryli. "But this feels…..more organized than that."

"I agree," said Eothen. "At first, I thought it was just a problem of letting some of the laws go lax, like allowing the nobility too much freedom in how heavily they tax the peasants. Without enough Heralds to circuit and make sure their laws were fair, they got out of control."

"But there are enough Heralds, I think, and enough Guard that even that wouldn't have resulted in outright rebellion, not without help," said Caryli. "That's what I can't get my finger on."

"I noticed that the people who ambushed us on the way here were wearing uniforms made of similar fabric to the townspeople here," said Eothen.

"Now that you mention it, that is rather peculiar," said Caryli. "I haven't seen that particular weave very often."

"Aladrian said that it's a style common to the Ur'nomi," said Eothen. She figured Aladrian could take the credit; she wasn't going to mention her ghosts. "A tribe of people far to the east that we absorbed a long time ago."

"Sounds like maybe they never actually assimilated," said Caryli.

"That's what I was thinking. But it's been hundreds of years; why are they suddenly sparking rebellion now?" said Eothen. "That's the part that doesn't make any sense to me."

"I feel like I'm losing my mind even thinking such a thing," said Caryli. "What kind of people waits this long to conspire and foment a rebellion?"

"I don't know," said Eothen. "How could it even be done? How does such a people maintain this goal over hundreds of years?"

"It's crazy-making," said Caryli. "I can't figure it, no matter how hard I try."

"Me neither, but it doesn't change the fact that that's what must be happening," said Eothen. "The why and the how, I suppose doesn't matter nearly as much as the what."

"That is also true," said Caryli. "We need to get this information back to Haven as quick as we can; let the Crown figure out the whys and the hows. I'm just a soldier, I couldn't begin to guess and I'm wasting my time trying."

"I dare say you're more than just a soldier," said Eothen. "But you're right about getting back to Haven. How long before our wounded can travel?"

"It's going to be another day or two," said Caryli. "But it's not my wounded I'm worried about. It's Alek. Can he ride? Is he ever going to wake up?"

"I don't know," said Eothen. "Aladrian and Kasara are exhausted by whatever it is they did to keep him alive; they haven't been able to tell me what's going on."

"Well, that's unfortunate," said Caryli. "Our chirurgeons don't know what to make of it. There's hardly a mark on him, and he appears to be awake – he blinks, he swallows the broth we feed him; but he just stares vacantly ahead. It's like the body lives, but the mind is gone."

"I don't see any reason I can't tie him to Kasara's saddle, once she's recovered enough to travel," said Eothen. "Herald's saddles are designed specifically to be able to do that."

"Huh," said Caryli. "I might look into doing that for some of my soldiers."

Eothen laughed. "It works well for Heralds, because Companions aren't going to spook and don't need to be commanded if their rider isn't able to control them," she said. "I don't know how it would work for ordinary horses. Even the horses of my people, I don't know whether or not it would work."

"Who are your people, anyway?" asked Caryli. "You've never talked about them."

"Shin'a'in," said Eothen. "They are not what they once were, I'm told. We used to be warriors. Now we wander around selling trinkets and breed horses."

"I've read about them," said Caryli. "From what I've read, it's hard to imagine the people in the books wandering like that."

Eothen shrugged; this was starting to make her uncomfortable. She loved her family, but wandering from town to town, with no homeland, with no purpose, and everyone treating her as if she were something less-than was not something she enjoyed remembering.

"Someone has to do it, I suppose," said Eothen. "I mean, we do odd jobs no one else wants to do, and our horses really are the best. Sometimes I actually miss riding Orrin, my black stallion. Aladrian is great – but there is something about riding bareback on a wild thing that just makes you feel alive, you know?"

"I do," said Caryli. "My horse is, actually, Shin'a'in bred. I got her from a trader that had just come from Rethwellan."

"That explains how well she fought," said Eothen. "I figured she was Ashkevron or something, I've heard those are good stock as well."

"They are, but mostly because they're bigger and not afraid of anything," said Caryli. "They won't shy from battle, they'll plunge right in, but they're not especially intelligent. They're certainly trainable, but they won't improvise the way a Shin'a'in will. And they're expensive to maintain; they can't survive long on anything less than the best oats and grain, whereas the Shin'a'in mount – "

"Will do just fine on grass for moons at a time," said Eothen. "Yes, a definite benefit to a roving mercenary."

"Or a soldier in the Guard," said Caryli. "A mercenary, because you travel all the time and can't count on a solid income; but I also travel all the time, and while I get a stable pay, I prefer to spend it on Samra."

"Who's Samra?" asked Eothen.

"My girl back home," said Caryli, with a sparkle in her eye.

"You're shaych?" asked Eothen. "Alek is too, maybe that's why – " Eothen stopped abruptly and blushed, realizing she was about to betray a secret she didn't mean to.

"Why what?" asked Caryli.

"He found you strangely intimidating when we met," confessed Eothen. "He said he usually only reacts that way to attractive men."

Caryli laughed. "I don't know why he would have reacted that way," she said. "I may not be the most feminine, but I am certainly not a man, attractive or no."

"Please don't tell him I told you," Eothen begged. "He begged me not to, it just slipped out."

"Oh, no need to worry," said Caryli. "I have no reason to tell anyone."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter nineteen**

Eothen was busy the next two days while they waited for everyone to be healthy enough to travel. The livestock of the town now had no one to care for them, seeing as the town itself had been razed; they could not be left behind to starve to death. That would be cruel, not to mention wasteful. Eothen butchered and cured as much of the meat as seemed reasonable, and then rigged some rope to tie them loosely together, allowing her – she hoped – to keep them moving with the group long enough to make it to the next town, where they could be sold to anyone wishing to purchase an additional animal. There were cattle, of course, and sheep, a few goats; she was perplexed as to what to do with the chickens. Finally, she took apart the pen they were housed in and rebuilt it so that it could be carried on one of the wagons; instead of being a row of boxes along the walls of the house, it was now a stack of boxes, one on top of the other, that she attached with rope rather than nails so that the boxes could be easily unstacked instead of having to rebuild the entire thing every time they sold one of them. Only after they were connected did she place the backs on each box to fully enclose the houses. The roosters would not like being confined, but there was not much more she could do.

"Well, there will be no shortage of fresh eggs and meat during this travel," said Caryli, who had walked up just then to see the final result.

"Yes, but having to keep the herd with us while we ride will slow us down quite a bit," answered Eothen. "And we need to make good time. I'm not sure what to do about that."

"No need to worry," laughed Caryli. "The Guard members that are well enough to drive the wagon or ride their horse but not well enough to fight will be taking the herd and the wagon. The rest of us will ride ahead and make all possible speed to Haven."

"Well that makes a lot of sense," said Eothen. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me that we could travel separately."

"Maybe you've just become too attached to me," said Caryli. "Too bad for you, I've already got a girl!"

Eothen blushed. It had never occurred to her to be attracted to women, but she had to admit, if it weren't for Hexen – and, well, Samra – she might have been tempted by Caryli. There was something very strangely attractive about her, Alek had been right; she couldn't put her finger on it, but Caryli had some sort of charisma about her that made her attractive…..to people who were and weren't ordinarily attracted to her type alike.

 _:I think she has a very low level Bardic Gift.:_ said Aladrian. _:Not enough to be trainable or even detectable, and she certainly is not conscious of it; but that's how she has managed to not only win the leadership of her Guard but to be attractive to, well, everyone.:_

 _:Good morning, you big sleepy horse.:_ Eothen teased her Companion. _:I guess as long as she isn't doing anything a-purpose, we can be grateful she's on our side, at least.:_

 _:Good morning yourself:_ retorted Aladrian. _:She is absolutely innocent of abusing her small Gift, if that is indeed what it is. She is not conscious of its existence; as I said, it's untrainable it's so small, I doubt it would even be detectable were she to demand to be tested for it. So no, she's certainly not to blame for its effect!:_

 _:Ok then.:_ said Eothen, getting a bit impatient – not too mention embarrassed – by this conversation. _:Tell me about Alek. What happened to him? What did you and Kalara do? Will he ever wake up?:_

 _:Alek was hit with a spell from that mage:_ Aladrian began. Eothen started to get frustrated; she had seen that much. _:It was a particular spell that attaches itself to whomever it hits and drains their energy into the caster.:_

 _:Wow.:_ said Eothen. _:I suppose that explains…..exactly nothing.:_

 _:Patience.:_ said Aladrian. _:When Caryli killed the mage, it should have stopped the spell; but it didn't. The mage had somehow altered the spell into one that would continue to drain its victim, but direct the energy into the ground.:_

 _:Why?:_ asked Eothen, more confused than ever. _:And how? And altered from what, exactly?:_

 _:The basic spell was one that Taia is familiar with.:_ said Aladrian. _:She has used it herself, more than once. But the version she was familiar with only drained power into herself; had she fallen, the spell would have dissipated and the victim would just be very tired, but alive.:_

 _:I can't imagine what she would have faced that would have required such a horrible spell, but what did you do to Alek?:_

 _:Demons, youngling.:_ said Taia. _:Among other things, for example a mage more powerful than I who used his power for evil and needed defeating. Never underestimate the ability of even the weakest Gift to defeat the most powerful, if used with intelligence.:_

Demons? And mages more powerful than Taia? Was it possible that such things had ever existed? She'd thought them exaggerations to make children behave…..

 _:They were quite real, demons, and could be called by any mage who knew how:_ said Taia. _:Controlling them was another matter, but yes, they existed – they still do, but no one has been able to call one in some time – and yes, I know how, no, I never did and I never will. And thank you for the compliment, but there have been several mages over the generations more powerful than I, although Whitestar and I were among the strongest. Strength, as you well know, does not determine a battle alone. Now listen to your Companion.:_

 _:By using ourselves as the channel, and following Taia and Whitestar's instruction, Kasara and I were able to break the spell and stop the drain on Alek's energy.:_ said Aladrian. _:We were not able to Heal him, not much; breaking the spell took most of our energy. Whether or not he will wake – I do not know. Kasara is more worried than she lets on, and if he does wake up, it is doubtful that he will be the same and there is no telling how long it will take.:_

Well, at least it was possible. Eothen couldn't stand thinking of Alek remaining that mindless husk forever.

 _:Why did his hair turn white? Why did his eyes turn blue?:_ she asked.

 _:Magic.:_ said Aladrian. _:Having magic flow through a person turns their hair white, their eyes blue. No one knows why. It has a bleaching effect, that's all anyone knows for sure. In fact – no one knows that at all, anymore, except for the Companions, since magic hasn't been around for a long time.:_

 _:Is that why Companions are white with blue eyes, and why there's no way to dye you to a more reasonable shade?:_ Eothen asked.

 _:Smart girl.:_ said Aladrian.

 _:Hmph.:_ retorted Eothen. She decided to walk over to the chirurgeon's tent to see how Alek was doing with her own eyes.

When she arrived, she was disappointed to find that there had been very little change. She wasn't surprised, but she had hoped just a little bit that he had recovered, or even better, the entire thing had been a bad dream and he was fine. But he was sitting in the Healer's tent, awake but vacant; there was none of that usual intelligence, no sparkle, in those once-brown but now-blue eyes. She sighed. At least he was able to eat; the chirurgeon's assistant was patiently spooning some kind of mush into his mouth, and Alek was dutifully and mindlessly swallowing it. That was an improvement, she supposed; he had started off just kind of letting it dribble from his mouth, and anything he swallowed was more or less an accident. At least now he wouldn't choke to death, although if he never recovered beyond this she wasn't sure if that would be a blessing or a curse.

"Hiya," said the chirurgeon assistant. He was a tall man, with hair so blonde it was almost as white as Alek's and similarly blue eyes as well. He was from a land so far north he said it was only warm enough to grow crops for two or three moons out of the year, and they spent a lot of time on boats fishing in waters so big no one knew whether or not they ever ended. In fact, that's how he had arrived in Valdemar; his boat was wrecked in a storm, and he washed up on a shore he didn't recognize. Not knowing how to get home, he decided instead to trade his willingness to learn for anyone who was willing to teach him; he was fair as a fighter, but found he really enjoyed learning the healing arts, and so he eventually ended up in Valdemar apprenticed to the chirurgeon's service.

"Heyla, Arik," said Eothen. "How's he doing today?"

"'Bout the same," said Arik. "Still no awareness, but he's able to drink his soup, and that's a mite bit better than 'e were."

"You ever seen this before?" she asked him.

"Nay, never," said Arik. "Not in all me travels, and there be many o' those. But I think he be alright again. It's maybe gonna take 'im awhile, sure, but I think he be alright in the end."

"I sure hope you're right," said Eothen. "I don't have a lot of friends, I'd sure like this one back."

"Ya," said Arik. "Ya, I betcha do. He seemed like a right good one, too. I do everything I can for him, though I know it not be much."

"I appreciate your efforts anyway, Arik, and so does the Crown," said Eothen.

She took over for Arik, then, and helped Alek drink the rest of the broth for his bowl. She told him everything that had happened since the battle; the consequences to the villages, the casualties to the Guard, even his own injuries. She told him how she had noticed the similarity between the villagers' clothing and that of the bandits they had fought on the road, and how Taia had said it resembled the clothing of the long-ago Ur'nomi tribe that Valdemar had allied with. She even told him her suspicion that this had been a long-term plan of that tribe the Ur'nomi, to appear to ally with Valdemar and then undermine them and take over from the inside. She knew how crazy that idea sounded; an undeveloped tribe couldn't possibly carry out a generations-long scheme to infiltrate and destroy a society as sophisticated as Valdemar.

Could they? She needed to talk to someone who knew more about history than she did. She'd never paid attention to it, herself; it hadn't seemed relevant to her while she was spending her days trying to avoid getting her body parts hacked off in whatever battle she was fighting. Unfortunately, Alek was the only history scholar she knew, and he certainly wasn't able to help her. But she had the impression that the Ur'nomi had been very primitive when Valdemar had discovered them; impressive magic and building skills, certainly, but socially very undeveloped. Valdemar was certainly not as advanced technologically then as they were now, but socially – weren't they sophisticated enough to not fall victim to something that treacherous? Weren't they?

But then she remembered. Taia had told her, and she knew it was true – strength didn't win a battle. The tiniest fighter with the smallest knife, if well-trained, could defeat the most powerful swordsman. It was all about timing and skill, not strength. Why couldn't the same be done socially? It was certainly possible that a tribe of people, seemingly unsophisticated, could infiltrate a more developed society and wait for the right moment to take over from the inside. Maybe that hadn't even always been their intention; maybe they truly had intended to ally with Valdemar and benefit from all the benefits their more developed society could offer. Maybe when the divide between nobility and commoner became wider, they simply at that moment decided to take advantage of the opportunity to seize power.

Or maybe they weren't trying to seize power at all; maybe they just wanted the chaos to ensue so they could see what benefit might fall out for them to grab. Eothen told Arik all of her crazy thoughts, hoping that once she said them out loud they would be ridiculous enough to be obviously untrue. But the more she talked, the saner she sounded, even to herself. She wasn't sure what the Ur'nomi motivation was; did they just like chaos, or did they want power? But it was obvious to her that somehow, and for some reason, this tribe that had been believed to be so primitive by Valdemaran standards at the time they became allies had stayed seemingly silent for generations, building discontent and rebellion, for the purpose of destroying Valdemar from within. The who, she had determined. The how she had deduced, and the where and the when were obvious; but the why, the why eluded her. And it was making her mad.

But Alek just stared blankly ahead during her recitation. He showed no sign of understanding a word she said; he showed no sign that he even knew anyone was there. Eothen had never been one to be particularly social; she had very few friends, and that had never bothered her. She was a loner; she liked it that way. She'd been close to her family, but as a mercenary there wasn't much reason to develop strong friendships; any one of them could easily be killed the next day. Rozem had been one of the very rare exceptions. But she'd grown very accustomed to Alek's companionship over the course of her internship, and she missed him. She didn't like seeing this mindless shell of the man who had been her partner and friend; if he never recovered, this was a fate worse than death, in her opinion. She almost – almost – wished that Aladrian and Kasara had not been able to Heal him; she would wish it, if it wouldn't also mean Kasara's death, and if it weren't for the bit of hope that he would eventually recover.

 _:He will.:_ said Taia. _:He will not recover everything, but he will recover from this. He will speak again, walk again, think again; but no, he will never be the same.:_

 _:You've been awfully quiet today.:_ said Eothen.

 _:Miss me?:_ joked Taia. _:I was letting you work out your current situation. Also, Whitestar and I have been searching our memories for anything we could remember about the Ur'nomi.:_

 _:What did you remember?:_ begged Eothen. _:Anything that could help me?:_

 _:I don't know, it's really dusty in there.:_ joked Taia. _:But one thing did occur to me. They had very sophisticated magic and very well designed buildings. The fabric they use for their clothing is distinctive; but because it's made out of grass, which is plentiful where they're from. Weird, extremely tall and strong grass, it makes excellent thatch. Anyway.:_

Taia paused; Eothen waited. She was getting impatient; she didn't see what their building style or type of grass had to do with anything at all.

 _:We thought they were primitive because while the buildings of their leaders were well made out of stone, the common people lived in mud huts with thatch roofs and wore grass skirts.:_ Taia continued. _:We also thought they were socially undeveloped because instead of negotiating with their neighboring tribes, they attacked and conquered them in order to take what they wanted. They initially tried to take over Valdemar by attacking us when we were playing bodyguard to the Heirs on their internship; they very nearly succeeded.:_

Someone almost defeated Taia and Whitestar? That seemed impossible to Eothen.

 _:I was human, youngling. I was a powerful mage and a skilled warrior, but not invincible. We were nearly defeated multiple times. Don't make me into something I never was; the storybooks you've read about me leave out all the good parts.:_ Taia chastised Eothen.

 _:Sorry.:_ said Eothen. _:In all fairness, I never read those books. The stories I heard were bedtime stories my mother told me.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ said Taia. _:Their initial attack failed, obviously; but we never did any research to discover just who the tribes were that they'd defeated, or how they'd done it. We assumed that they attacked and defeated them with magecraft or military. Most of the time, that was probably true. But perhaps not always.:_

 _:Then how?:_ said Eothen.

 _:Subterfuge. Obviously.:_ said Taia, as if she were speaking to a small child.

 _:Obviously.:_ said Eothen, frustrated. _:But specifically how? And do you have any examples of societies they did that to?:_

 _:No.:_ said Taia. _:Unfortunately, I don't. Neither Whitestar or I were ever particularly interested in researching other cultures; we had too much else to do.:_

 _:So how does having absolutely no recollection or research proving that they ever engaged in subterfuge prove that they are now using subterfuge?:_

 _:Look at the evidence.:_ said Taia. _:You'd deduced as much yourself, without my help. They accepted our negotiations far too easily, looking back; we assumed it was because they realized we could destroy them in a military battle and were intelligent enough to think it was a good deal.:_

 _:But a culture that didn't negotiate wouldn't recognize a good deal. They'd just go to war.:_ said Eothen.

 _:Exactly.:_ said Taia. _:And whether or not we would have actually been able to defeat them in battle is questionable; their magic was superior to ours. Whitestar and I learned it, as well as a few others powerful enough to do so, but at the time they would likely have defeated us in mage battle. We defeated them – barely – when they attacked the heirs because of luck and the fact that they had only brought one mage; but if we had fought an all-out war - :_

 _:They would have had more than one mage.:_ answered Eothen.

 _:Yes.:_ said Taia. _:And they were a very long distance away; if we had traveled there by land, they would have picked us off one skirmish at a time before we ever even arrived. If we traveled by Gate, that would have used most of our mage energy and we'd be defeated before we began.:_

 _:So subterfuge.:_ said Eothen. _:And long-term subterfuge. It's been generations since you first encountered them; the ability to maintain this level of subterfuge to undermine Valdemar is not exactly indicative of a primitive culture. And that is not encouraging for our chances of success at defeating them.:_

 _:Exactly.:_ said Taia.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter twenty**

The day finally arrived that the injured were healthy enough to either ride their own mounts or be loaded into the one remaining wagon they had found in the town. Eothen helped Arik get Alek positioned properly on Kasara and then tied him to her saddle; Alek never stopped staring blankly ahead. Eothen wondered again whether his technical survival was a blessing or a curse. She knew that both Taia and Aladrian had said he would recover, at least partly; but how much, no one knew. Caryli had divided some of her Guard; she set her second in command to lead half of them along the path they had originally been on, and the rest – including the wounded and Caryli herself – would accompany Eothen and Alek back to Haven. Caryli had debated this; on the one hand, she didn't want to divide her forces and leave them more vulnerable to defeat should either half of them be attacked. But while the Heralds could not be left undefended – and Alek was hardly in any condition to defend himself – and Caryli had reason to want to go herself to Haven to help implore upon the Crown to find a solution, the official Guard duty of roaming the country and keeping the peace could not be neglected either, particularly with rebellion looming. So she split the forces.

They set off just before dawn, when the sky was just grey enough to see where they were going but nothing else was awake yet. Rika was still injured enough that she rode in the wagon most of the time with the injured soldiers; she'd heal just fine, but she needed to rest. This meant that the party was required to hunt for their own fresh meat, much to Eothen's dismay; she had gotten very used to having Rika do her hunting for her, and was chagrined to realize just how lazy she had gotten by depending on it.

 _:Sorry, heartmate.:_ Rika said. _:I'll be back in action in about a sennight. Meanwhile, get your skills back up!:_

 _:I definitely will.:_ answered Eothen. _:As much as I appreciate your help, I'm angry at myself for getting complacent.:_

They rode hard during the day and camped at night, stopping only to water their horses. They ate trail rations on horseback as they rode; they needed to make as much progress as possible. Every day that Haven went without knowing about the coming rebellion was a day they couldn't spend any time trying to come to a solution. On that first evening, Eothen gathered up her hunting bow, a short sword for defense should such a thing prove necessary, and her hunting knife and went looking for a deer. Or a wild pig, at least. She was determined to return with something more satisfying than a rabbit. It was peaceful in the woods; the sun had only just disappeared behind the trees, so it was dim but not so dark that she couldn't see. She practiced walking through the leaves without making any noise as she'd been taught as a child. She even climbed a few trees; her family was the only one amongst the Shin'a'in that did so, but they all learned to climb trees and walk from one branch to another at the top. She didn't enjoy being that high off the ground, but she did find it useful to see where she was going, where she'd been and if there was prey nearby she couldn't see from her normal vantage point.

Despite her best efforts, however, Eothen was not rewarded. She found no deer to hunt, nor wild pig and was obliged to settle for pheasants and rabbits. At least there were the pheasants, she supposed. By the time she returned to camp it was dark, and she cleaned her animals by firelight, with Caryli's welcome assistance. She found she truly enjoyed the Captain's company; it was nice to sit and talk with another woman who understood her mercenary past and didn't judge her for having chosen a life of fighting and battle, rather than baking and child-rearing. She also thought, very privately, that if she hadn't found Hexen and Caryli hadn't found Samra, it might have been easy to develop a more romantic interest in Caryli; this thought surprised her, as she had never had feelings for other women before. She wondered if that thought was just due to Caryli's incredible charisma or if maybe she was just lonely. It had been a long time since she had actually seen Hexen, after all, let alone…..

She stopped her mind from wandering down that path, however; it was not helpful in the least. They were, in fact, both in relationships with other people; she and Hexen were not handfasted, that was sure, and they had made no overt promises of fidelity, but she was not the type to just go to bed with whomever she found attractive at the moment. And Caryli and Samra were, in fact, handfasted, so the point was moot. But the thoughts really confused her, nonetheless.

 _:Women do have their…..charms.:_ Taia said in the back of her mind. _:You wouldn't be the first to experiment, so far from home and the comforts of your own partner.:_

 _:Hush, you.:_ said Eothen. _:I don't particularly appreciate you rummaging around in my private thoughts. You were not invited there.:_

 _:Quite right.:_ said Taia. _:Quite right. I apologize. I did not intend to 'hear' those thoughts; you merely happened to be thinking them when I was trying to get your attention for other matters.:  
:Hmph.: _said Eothen. _:What other matters?:_

 _:The fact that the village you were planning on stopping in tomorrow night is on the verge of rebellion.:_ Taia said.

Oh. Well that threw a wrench into things. Eothen had rather looked forward to a real bed and an inn….well, it couldn't be helped, and anyway she had to know what Caryli thought about it.

"Captain," she began, "Aladrian has been scouting."

"Well," Caryli answered, "I know that when you use my title and not my name, that's a a bad sign. Out with it."

"He said the village we'd planned on staying in tomorrow night is on the verge of rebellion." Once again Aladrian got credit for being an overachiever. "He says Heralds and the Guard showing up might just be the provocation they need to start a fight."

"And so are likely all the villages between here and Haven," said Caryli. " _Sheka._ So either we counter the rebellion, take too much time and maybe not even survive to warn them, or we arrive in Haven but the rebellion has already begun."

"Exactly," said Eothen. "What do you think we should do?"

"You're the Herald," said Caryli. "you give _me_ orders, not the other way around."

"I was on my training circuit." Replied Eothen. "I'm not an actual Herald."

"Still," answered Caryli, "I'd appreciate ideas."

The problem was, Eothen could think of only one. And she didn't like it.

"Companions can outpace any horse and their stamina is unmatched." Eothen began. "The only solution I see is for Aladrian and Kasara to carry Alek and myself and make all possible haste to Haven, stopping only when absolutely necessary and not in towns. You lead the Guard back as quickly as you can but quelling any rebellion you can."

"Agreed," said Caryli. "And not that I wish any harm to your Companions, but anyone who can hit a Companion in full gallop deserves credit. What about Rika?"

"She's not able to travel yet, and she's fast but can't keep up anyway," said Eothen. "She will stay with you and allow me to keep track of you progress."

 _:While I don't relish the idea of being separated, you're right, heartsister.:_ said Rika. _:Even fully recovered I could not keep up with Aladrian and would have to ride pillion. This way I won't slow you down and I can actually serve a purpose besides."_

 _:Kinda what I was thinking.:_ Eothen replied. _:I will miss you terribly, but I need you to recover and keep me informed of what's going on. Do not, under any circumstances, get yourself killed.:_

 _:I shall do my best to comply.:_ said Rika. _:You, as well.:_

 _:I have no intention of slowing down long enough to be killed,:_ Eothen replied.

The next morning just before dawn, Eothen strapped everything she would need to Aladrian and Kasara's backs. Weapons, canteens of water and liquefied food for Alek, as many rations as the army could spare – they would have to last the entire journey; Eothen would not have time to hunt, and they couldn't stop to buy anything in towns. One cloak each to serve as both bedding and warmth; everything else – cooking supplies, bedrolls, everything not absolutely essential – she loaded onto the wagon carrying the wounded. The Companions had excellent speed and stamina, but it was not limitless; they would need every last bit for this ride. Any extra weight at all made their success that much more difficult.

Finally she strapped in Alek himself. He didn't react; just kept staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Eothen wondered for the hundredth time if he would recover, and whether or not his survival was a blessing or a curse.

 _:He will recover.:_ and unfamiliar mindvoice said to Eothen. It occurred to her belatedly, and much to her surprise, that it was Kasara. _:He's starting to be aware of his surroundings, but no one else can sense him. He's not strong enough yet to communicate on anything but a soul-level band.:_

 _:Good.:_ Eothen said. _:Tell him to hurry up, I miss my friend.:_

Kasara seemed amused by that, and turn to wink an enormous sapphire eye at her. Then just for show, she reared and started off at a gallop; Aladrian followed suit a mere second later and they were off to Haven.

They rode hard. They stayed off the roads in order to reduce the risk of ambush, running on old hunting trails and on the far end of fields when necessary. At time they even raced through the wood; the Companions were obliged at those points to stop briefly for Eothen to reposition Alek's head and shoulders so they wouldn't get so banged up by stray branches. Kasara could avoid the ones big enough to knock Alek off – tied to the saddle, he wouldn't actually be knocked off, but he didn't need a head injury – but the smaller ones, she would have to take too much time. It would take most of a fortnight to make it to Haven like this; if they could have used the roads, they would be able to cut that time in half, maybe less, but that entailed too much risk. Eothen slept and ate in the saddle; they stopped only at rivers to let the Companions graze a bit, drink a bit, and refill there water canteens. Eothen poured as much food as she could into Alek during these breaks too, but she knew it wasn't enough. She just hoped the lack of calories wasn't severe enough to starve him to death before they arrived in Haven.

 _:Ambush ahead.:_ said Taia one afternoon about a sennight after they had set out. _:You will hit in a candlemark at this pace. Four enemies, well armed and armored.:_

 _:Too dangerous for me to try and defeat.:_ Eothen replied. _:I could try, and maybe succeed, but the consequences of my failure are to high._ Sheka _.:_

Aladrian and Kasara were obliged to stop while Taia scouted for an alternative route, far enough from the would-be ambushers that they could be avoided. Eothen took the opportunity to stretch her legs quickly, reposition Alek and pour as much soup down his throat as he would take.

 _:Bad news.:_ said Taia. _:Only way around them is to pick our way through the forest with me guiding Aladrian.:_

 _:Figures.:_ said Eothen. _:Well, there's no help for it. We'll just have to go as fast as we can and hope we get to Haven in time. Good news is, hopefully I can get a rabbit or two while we're slowing down, at least.:_

The delay would add at least a full day, maybe two, but Eothen was right: there was no help for it. They had no idea whether or not they would make it to Haven on time; perhaps they were already too late. There was no real way of knowing.

Caryli and her troupe rode towards the town quickly, but warily. They knew an attack was coming due to Taia's scouting (although Caryli, of course, thought Aladrian was to be credited for it) but they didn't know exactly when or from which direction. Each soldier was ready, but had to appear as if they weren't expecting an attack; Caryli would have preferred to ride into town, sword in hand, but that was not practical. Despite the fact that she knew a fight was coming, in this town as well as likely all the rest, to ride into town sword in hand would result in an expectation amongst all the towns that the Guard was attacking, and they would lose this impending war before it even began. The citizens that were not rogue, anyway, had to remain on the side of Valdemar were they to have any hope at all of renewing the peace. So they rode in, prepared but pretending not to be, and waiting.

Suddenly an arrow shot past her, and if she had not shifted her weight at precisely the moment she did that arrow would have shot straight through her neck and killed her. As it was it hit her helmet, bounced off and left her with a horrid ringing in head that nearly deafened her to her troupe's order to draw swords and bows in response. But response to what? She still wasn't sure where that arrow had come from, and the longer it took her to figure it out the more likely her would-be assassin was to try again and succeed. She peered half in hope, half in fear at the trajectory that arrow must have taken, but in vain; the troupe, lacking a visible target, rode on. Another arrow from another unseen attacker was loosed and she heard one of her soldiers behind her cry out and fall from his horse. So their attackers intended to pick off her troupe one by one like cowards. This could not stand. She had too assume the soldier that fell was dead; in any case, stopping to load him onto the wagon would only result in more of her troupe getting killed, so she gave the command to run at all speed back out of town d out of range. This would either goad the town into fighting face to face as she preferred, or leave her to her other option. One she didn't like, but as no town militia appeared, she was left with little choice. _Sheka_.

"Prepare to fire the town," she gave the order. "By lighted arrow, preferably, but burn it the ground as quickly as you can. Regroup on the other side; the wagon will ride straight through town as fast as possible, with everyone who can string a bow it its defense. Prepare your torches."

Caryli really hated to do this, and she knew her troupe felt the same. But they could not allow rebellion to flourish, they couldn't take the game trails that Eothen and Alek were on, and they could not just get picked off one by one riding through town. She considered just galloping straight through town, hopefully too fast for the town to get any good shots off, but that not only let the town's attack go without reprisal but left their wagon, which could not go fast enough to avoid being destroyed, defenseless. Helpless wounded, not to mention all their supplies, would be killed and the supplies used instead to help the rebels? That could not stand. So setting fire to the town was their option. She knew innocents would die right alongside the guilty, but this tow had at least harbored rebellion if not participated in it, so not entirely innocent. She tried not to think about the children and prepared herself for the horrible screaming that was to come and for the stench of burning flesh. She slung one of the two arrow bundles attached to her saddle across her shoulders and took her torch in its place – and they were, all too soon, ready.

She gave the command to begin and the troupe began methodically, but quickly, to set fire to every building in town. They worked in pairs, one pair going to the front of each building and one to the back, breaking windows to set fire to curtains and firing lighted arrows into the thatch. Even the barns were razed; gates were opened first, in order to allow animals to escape and one pair of each team razing a barn rode through in order unlatch horse stalls but Caryli knew a lot of the animals would be too terrified to run.

 _:I am healthy enough for this.:_ said a voice within her head; she realized it had to have been Rika when she saw the _kyree_ jump from the wagon, limping slightly, and lope towards the horse barn. _:I will get as many to follow me as I can.:_

Well, at least there would be that; she sent silent thanks in Rika's direction, and got back to her grim work. Some desperate townspeople threw their children out the broken windows in the hopes that they would live; Caryli hoped that they would, though she could not spare the time or the manpower to escort them to safety. The nearest Guardpost, which was the only place they could go since she expected similar fighting in every town from here to Haven, was a fortnight away. So she would have to hope that the oldest amongst them was mature enough to see them all to safety. They were nearly finished with their task; the smoke was chokingly thick and black, and Caryli knew that the tears on her face was due to the smoke at least as much as it was to the heart-rending screams of the dying. Finally they were finished; the buildings they had started with were smoldering, the last were beyond saving even had there been a fire brigade within range. The troupe regrouped on the far edge of town, exhausted, blackened with soot, all with tearstains writing maps down their faces; and like Caryli, it wasn't all due to smoke. A silence equally as horrible as the screams was all that was left to hear. Rika was limping for real as she received Caryli's assistance to get back inside the wagon; she was a wolf-shaped solid mass of soot with two eyes looking out of it. Her head hung low, mouth open and gulping air; Caryli shared her canteen of water with the poor _kyree_ and Rika indicated her thanks.

 _:More than half,:_ Rika said into Caryli's head, answering he unasked question. _:Less than all.:_

Caryli thought her thanks in Rika's direction, but was soon interrupted by her Lieutenant Detrent.

"There were a few escapees," Detrent said "We couldn't shoot all of them; got most, but they escaped with Geipol."

 _Sheka._ "I had thought him dead," said Caryli. Geipol had been the soldier hit by the arrow.

"No ma'am," he was hit in the thigh; the fall knocked him out, but it was not a killing blow. Shall we mount a rescue?"

"Did you see where they were headed?" Caryli asked.

"No, ma'am," Somewhere towards the woods, that's all anyone can say."

 _Sheka._ "No," said Caryli. "No rescue. As much as I would like to we simply cannot afford to mount a rescue through woods that they know, but we do not; they would pick us off like rabbits, and make all of this in vain. We do not have the manpower or the time to pull it off. Im sorry."

"Understood, ma'am, and and as much as I would like to disagree I cannot," said Detrent, "One thing, ma'am. The townspeople knew that until recently, we were traveling with our two Herald; it cannot have gone unnoticed that they were not with us."

"And the escapees will want to know why," said Caryli. "And they will torture poor Geipol to find out."

"I guess all we can do it hope Geipol doesn't tell them," said Detrent.

"He will," said Caryli, quietly. "He will. No matter how strong or brave anyone is, and I have no doubt Geipol is both those things, everyone breaks. Everyone. There are things torturer can do that will make anyone do whatever they have to to do to make it stop."

"Ma'am?" asked Detrent.

"That's why you all receive training one how to mix enough lies in with the truth you will inevitably tell to make it indistinguishable from the lies so as to confuse the enemy enough so that the truth you tell will be harmless." Said Caryli.

"Yes ma'am," said Detrent. "I hope Geipol was trained well, then."

"I do too," Caryli answered. "I do too."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter twenty-one**

 _:Heartsister.:_ Rika said into Eothen's mind. _:One of our Guard was captured by some rebels. He likely was tortured in order for them to find you. Watch your back.:_

 _:Rika!:_ Eothen was surprised at how much she missed her friend. _:How are you? That must be how they found us.:_ Eothen told Rika how they had come to picking their way through the woods at a snail's pace.

 _:I had hoped to catch you in time, this just happened last night!:_ Rika said. _:how did they get there so fast?!:_

 _:A Gate.:_ Taia said. _:they have a mage.:_

 _:WHAT?!:_ said Eothen. _:I thought you said that was imposible!:_

 _:I thought it was.:_ said Taia. _:In my day, the energy to built a Gate could only come from within the mage himself, and by the end of my lifetime, myself and Whitestar were the only mages capable of doing it at all.:_

 _:What changed?:_ asked Eothen.

 _:Somehow they figured out a way to build one by using more than just the mage's energy.:_ Taia responded. _:There's only one mage, and he isn't even very strong. I can't explain how he did it.:_

Taia was furious that she could not figure out how that mage had built a Gate; but it didn't really matter, he had. And that meant they could do it again. But there was no help for it, she would just have to keep scouting. They spent two days getting around the would-be attackers, just to try and be a little safer; Eothen spent that time getting a normal amount of liquid food into Alek, and she thought he looked a little better for it. Taia spent the time worrying about whether or not that mage had Farsight. Or Magesight. Or even just a good tracker. But she was watching, and she saw no evidence that the enemy had any idea where Eothen and Alek currently were. She did see signs that were getting bored with waiting; she would lay bets the they thought Geipol had lied enough to make the information questionable. It seems that poor Geipol had, indeed, been well trained.

The moment they were able Aladrian and Kasara started off again at a gallop. They still had at least a little more than a sennight to go, maybe longer if there were more delays. At this pace, they would arrive at Haven more than a moon in advance of Carlyi and the Guard; Eothen just hoped the Captain wouldn't be to delayed too long, and she hoped further that Carlyi would make it at all.

There were several times, however, when they were obliged to again slow down to a walk through the woods to avoid being caught either by villagers who had somehow been alerted to their path – Rika was able to mindspeak Eothen, or at least Taia, well enough to warn them – or who had just happened to be using the same hunting trail they were trying to race along. Eothen supposed it couldn't be helped, and just took the extra time to try and get nourishment into Alek. Still, due to the delays, they ended up only passing through the walls of Haven a mere fortnight or so ahead of Caryli and her troops. They raced through the outskirts as fast as they could; these people were more accustomed to Companions racing through the street and knew to get out of the way; so Eothen was surprised to see a man pull a sword and stand his ground as if he was about to charge her. Aladrian didn't even slow; he felt the threat and was prepared to trample the man where he stood, or fight if it came to that. But suddenly the man was not there; Aladrian and Kasara raced through where he had been, only to have him drop to the ground, dead, behind them.

 _:Aladrian and Kasara are too exhausted to have to fight that man.:_ Taia explained. _:And I'm far to old to waste time. I Fetched him up to about roof height and then dropped him.:_

 _:Won't the Goddess object?:_ asked Eothen, a little shocked.

 _:Maybe.:_ said Taia. _:But I don't think so.:_

 _:Thank you,:_ said Aladrian. _:You are right; I am exhausted. And I probably would have been badly injured by his sword. If your Goddess has a problem with your aid I will have words with Her, Goddess or not.:_

Eothen got the distinct impression that Taia found this proposition hilarious as well as eminently appropriate. Finally they arrived at the collegium and palace gates and the Companions still did not slow. The guards did not open them fast enough – why not? Eothen briefly wondered – so both Companions were forced to skid to a stop. There were two guards, and each Companion picked one, ears flattened, teeth flashing, screaming battle challenges a mere breath from each guard's face. They reared in unison, threatening the guards with razor-sharp silver hooves that almost connected with their targets, and would have, had the Companions wanted them to. Eothen pulled her swords as well; through it all, Alek just sat, blank-faced, only staying mounted because he had been tied to his saddle.

"YOU WILL OPEN THESE GATES IMMEDIATELY," she yelled. "OR YOU WILL DIE WHERE YOU STAND. IT IS AGAINST VALDEMARAN LAW TO IMPEDE A COMPANION OR HERALD IN ANY WAY; I ALMOST HOPE YOU KEEP TRYING, FOR I AM NOT IN THE MOOD TO BE MERCIFUL OR PATIENT."

The guards, much to her dismay and confusion, did not budge. So Eothen used one sword as a throwing knife, which came as a surprise to the guard who was bracing for an actual sword fight and lodged the sword securely in the guard's neck. She retrieved it as he fell, and Aladrian came down hard on his back for good measure. Kasara, for her part, was angry. She had run all-out for weeks, not been able to slow down enough to save her Chosen from injury or even to feed him appropriately. And now this guard, who was supposed to open the gate the second he saw a Companion running towards it, failed to do so, and even dared stand his ground despite her warning? No. This could not stand, and neither would he. She came down with her front hooves and all her weight neatly – and hard – on his shoulders, and as he crumpled, severed his spine him with her teeth.

 _:Wow.:_ said Taia, clearly impressed. _:Remind me to stay on Kasara's good side.:_

Eothen indicated her agreement, and strung her bow. She pointed it at the closest wall guard. He looked shocked, and terrified. Good.

"Now," she addressed him, "are you going to get down here and open this gate, or would you prefer an arrow blocking your vision?"

She wasn't quite sure she could make that shot; the sun was in her face, and he was wearing a full helmet. But he didn't know that.

 _:Don't sell yourself short.:_ said Taia. _:You'd make that shot easy.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ Eothen answered.

They would never find out. The guard in question couldn't drop his weapons fast enough as he raced down the stairs to open the gate. It was hard for one man to open, but not impossible, and it was clear the guard was doing the best he could to hurry. Still, Eothen found it hard to be patient; she was exhausted, filthy, hungry and mad as hell. Why had those guards not opened the gate? Why had they challenged and been ready to fight two Companions plus a Herald – two, they hadn't known until Kasara reared that Alek was helpless – to keep them from getting home?

Kasara went directly to Healer's; Alek was in no condition to make any kind of report. Aladrian continued to the Palace for Eothen to speak to the Queen, having spoken to Rolan via Mindspeech to notify, via the Queen's Companion, of Eothen's need to speak with her. Eothen had never really met Queen Selene, let alone spoken with her; she had seen her a few times, so she knew what she looked like. Long, wavy red-blonde hair, slender – she was rumored to be an excellent fighter, especially with knives – a long face, bright blue eyes which gave nothing away as to what she was thinking or feeling, but that gave you the distinct impression you wouldn't want to cross her. Eothen was nervous, even more so since she was sweaty and filthy and hadn't been able to bathe in a fortnight, but there was no help for it. This could not wait. She tied up her hair as best she could, took a deep breath and followed the page who showed up to guide her to the throne room.

 _:Relax:_ said Taia. _:The Queen, as her predecessors were before her, is quite accustomed to taking reports from dirty, exhausted Heralds. She is more interested in what you have to say than in how you look while saying it.:_

 _:If you say so,:_ Eothen replied, feeling not at all reassured.

 _:Hmph.:_ said Taia, and there was no more time to stall as the page ushered her in to see the queen, who was waiting for her expectantly.

"Good day," Eothen began. "I apologize, I've been riding for so long I have no idea whether it is morning or evening."

"And exhausted, I can imagine," said Selene, without a hint of annoyance, but rather genuinely concerned. "You should get right to it; no doubt you would prefer your bath and your bed rather than reporting to me. Out with it."

"I have reason to believe that rebellion is brewing," Eothen said; the queen looked shocked for a moment, but recovered quickly. "We have seen increasing disparity and division between nobility and the farmers, and to lesser degree, the merchants; at first we just believed it was due to the shortage of Heralds, and our inability to oversee the laws were written fairly, and the nobles were getting greedy."

"I have seen the same here in Haven, and from of reports of Heralds returning from circuit," said Selene, sounding frustrated. "I cannot get the nobility to behave with any measure of compassion, or even civility, towards their own tenants or inspire them to treat the more impoverished areas of Haven with anything but outright disdain. I know the farmers and merchants are angry, but what makes you think rebellion is waiting?"

"At first, we didn't," said Eothen. "We just rewrote the laws in a more fair manner, and figured it was just that, nobility against farmers. But then one day I'd gone hunting, and someone attacked and tried to kill me. Obviously I lived –" Eothen did not say how close it had been – "and he'd been magicked to my location."

"WHAT?!" exclaimed Selene. "I thought true magic was extinct, was I mistaken?"

"Apparently, we all were, including the Companions," said Eothen. "When we examined my attacker's clothing, it was an unusual style; Alek said it was typical style of the Ur'nomi people. We located and enlisted a contingent of the Guard to confront the town; they attacked us, and used some kind of mage weapon on Alek. He lives, but does not interact with the world anymore; Kasara says he will recover, but it will take a long time."

"I heard a little of that from Cera, my Companion, by way of Rolan," said Selene. "But thought it an isolated incident. Why do you believe it isn't?"

"I know it sounds insane," Eothen said. "But the town that attacked were wearing most the same Ur'nomi clothing. In scouting the next town – I am in contact with a _kyree_ \- we determined that if we arrived as planned, we would have been similarly attacked, and they were waiting for us. That was why we split with the Guard and raced along game trails to get here to warn you."

"And I'm glad you did," said Selene. "The Ur'nomi – we allied with their tribe during the end of my several-times great-grandmother's reign. Strange people, superior stone buildings to ours and mage skills, as well, but no diplomacy. But I'm still confused as to why you believe rebellion is imminent."

"The Guard was, in fact, attacked in that next town," Eothen explained. "and in almost every other town they passed through. We ourselves had to evade ambush from those towns, if they captured and tortured a Guard member as to where we were. Also, we were…forced to dispatch one citizen of Haven and two gate guards who challenged us on arrival."

"Well, I see that had I let you finish, you would have answered all of my questions," said Selene. "I am sorry. That does appear to be a brewing rebellion. However, I am not quite sure how to handle it. I am of course aware of the fall of virtually every other nation into chaos, and it appeared to be the same problems we were facing; I believed, and still do, that the Heralds are the sole reason we have lasted this long."

"But there aren't enough of us," said Eothen. "Not enough to withstand this level of rebellion. Not enough Guard, either. I had thought about trying to train appropriate people to do the job of Heralds without Companions, but there doesn't seem to be enough time."

"No," said Selene. "There is not. It seems as if we are headed towards civil war, and I do not relish that thought, and neither do I know how it will end; we can't fight it piecemeal, as we've been doing. No sooner than one town is brought into line, another one is fighting, and the first one gets troublesome again. If we recall all the Guard and the Heralds, it will take too long, and we would have to reconquer our own people, and that – is un-Valdemaran. I will call an emergency Council meeting to discuss options. You will not be needed; you need to rest. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

Eothen knew a dismissal when she heard one. "One more thing," she said. "You say the Ur'nomi had no diplomacy. I know it seemed that way, since they attacked and stole what they wanted until meeting Valdemar. At least that's the way it appeared. But what if they used sabotage as well? What if they infiltrated a society, sowed dissension, and when the society devolved into chaos, took over? I know it's insane. But the more I think about, the more it makes sense."

"And by allying with them, we also gave them access to all our other allies," Selene said, stunned. "Which is why all of them, including ourselves, have fallen apart in the very same way, at the very same time. We thought we were gaining an ally, and learning new skills; instead we ushered in our world's destruction."

"Your ancestor could not have anticipated that they were capable of a multi-generational sabotage," said Eothen.

"Likely they didn't anticipate it taking so long, either," said Selene. "Still. Nothing to be done now, except solve the problem. If it can be solved."

Eothen nodded, and left the room. Selene got busy preparing for the Council. Eothen, having completed the task she had been racing so hard to complete, suddenly was so exhausted she could barely stand. Nevertheless she headed to her quarters, drew water for her bath, got in to soak – and promptly fell asleep.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter twenty-two**

Alek was holed up in a room at Healer's, one with a window for Kasara to poke her head in. Malak was there; he had been summoned by a trainee who had the bright idea that Malak might be able to coax Alek out of his current state. Malak had be shocked to find his husband, last seen with dark hair, brown eyes, and tanned skin as he currently appeared, pale, almost translucent skin, pale blue eyes, and white hair. But Malak had verified that Alek really was Alek by virtue of a birthmark only he would have known about, and from that moment refused to leave his side. He played his music and sang, he fed him, talked with him, caught Alek up on all the goings on of Haven and all the rumors about what was going to happen next.

It took a sennight, but it worked; Alek began by first looking straight at Malak when he was talking or singing, seeming to understand what was happening. Then he began to nod yes or no to questions, then he could say it. He was able to take a few steps with support, and even feed himself a few bites. After a sennight, Eothen made her way to visit – she would have come sooner, but with meeting with other Heralds, Council member, and the Queen, as well as her own reunion with Hexen, she didn't have any time. Besides which, she was still exhausted and wanted to give Malak his privacy. But the moment she saw her friend, she ran to Alek and hugged him tight. Alek actually hugged her back.

 _:He says to thank you for caring for him.:_ said Kasara into Eothen's head. _:He says to tell you that you made excellent decisions, and you passed your field circuit with flying colors.:_

"You can talk to Kasara?" she exclaimed. "That's wonderful!"

"Yes," said Alek with a smile. His voice was a whisper, but it was a voice.

"Kasara tells me he was aware of what was going on the whole time," said Malak. "But he could not make himself respond. Thank you so much for looking out for my man."

Eothen surprised both herself and Malak by hugging him, too, and spent the rest of the candlemark getting to know her mentor's husband. Alek paid close attention, and occasionally was able to interject a yes or no or otherwise indicate his intentions. More often, Kasara relayed Alek's comments via Mindspeech to both Eothen and Malak. Eothen couldn't remember being so happy, or so relieved; she had been so worried that her friend would not recover, despite Kasara's reassurance, and she was simply keeping him alive for her own, and Kasara's benefit. But it seemed as if Alek would, in fact, recover, and he was happy to be here. Eothen could have spent the whole day, but she had too many obligations. One of them was being fitted for her brand new Whites, she had lost quite a bit of weight, so her old Grays would not do to go by. And another meeting with the queen, another abbreviated Council meeting…..and she wanted to at least see Aladrian today.

The Council was still deadlocked on what to do; there were really two options. Recall all the Guard and the Heralds, and basically re-conquer their whole territory; that would entail a lot of innocent deaths, and probably result in further rebellion as a very heavy-handed response. Still, it might preserve the infrastructure of their nation enough to rebuild, and perhaps by then, the rest of the citizenry would be happy enough – or even forget entirely – to mount another rebellion, or if they did the government would be able to handle it. The other option was to communicate, via Companion, to band together with Guard contingents and take the fight town by town. This had more ethical value, in Eothen's opinion; it would not result in as many innocent deaths and did not simply roll through the country, decimating the population. But it would take considerably more time, communication would be difficult, each individual citizen would need to, at the end of each fight, be questioned to determine loyalty, and each Herald/Guard contingent stood a decent chance of being defeated, whereas the army as a whole stood a better chance. If that happened, it would be a disaster; and they would have to hope for success – total success – before rebellion sprang up again.

All things considered, Eothen didn't know which option she hoped would win out. The first had more likelihood of success, perhaps; but the latter remained more true to Valdemar as a nation. After all, she thought, the nation's success in survival meant nothing, if they squandered their values to do it. And if that happened, what were they bothering to save, anyway? She would rathe try, and fail, to succeed in saving the core of what Valdemar was, than live, only to save the nation, but destroy its values and what it stood for.

 _:I made much the same argument to the Council myself, when they were leaning towards running from that mage and his army.:_ said Taia. _:I knew I liked you.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ Eothen replied.

Hexen was overjoyed to be reunited with Eothen. As soon as the page came to notify him that Eothen was done meeting with the queen, he raced over to her quarters – and found her sound asleep in her bath. Hexen knew she had to be exhausted, but nevertheless he couldn't help but be a little disappointed. He had been hoping for a little more animated reunion. Still, he picked her up and dried her off, laid her in her bed to sleep – and sat. He knew she would sleep for a long time, so he got comfortable. When she started showing signs of waking in a candlemark or so, he sent a page to bring some food; he knew she would wake up ravenous. He was right; when she woke, she first looked around as if she didn't know where she was. When she had established that she was, in fact, in her own room, she kissed him heartily – and then promptly began to eat.

"Thank you," said Eothen around a mouthful of bread. "I'm sorry, I had intended to see you after my bath – "

"No you didn't," Hexen said, but he was quick to reassure Eothen that he wasn't angry – "you were exhausted. Too exhausted to think, to even know I existed. Don't argue – I'm not mad. It's to be expected. Now tell me what was so important you had to race yourself almost to death to get to Haven."

"You," said Eothen, and then blushed. "Seriously, though, it's going to sound insane."

"Try me," said Hexen. "I've heard some pretty insane stuff, and besides, I know how likely you are to believe in crazy theories. As in, not at all"

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," said Eothen. "Have you ever heard of the Ur'nomi tribe?"

"A little," said Hexen. "Strange people, don't like to talk. They will answer whatever questions you ask them, but will not elaborate or volunteer anything. What do they have to do with anything?"

"When Valdemar first made contact with them, they assumed, from their mannerisms and dress, that they were quite unsophisticated. If they wanted what another tribe – or nation – had, they defeated them and took it."

"How very unValdemaran," said Hexen. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Well," said Eothen, "what if they weren't so unsophisticated? What if instead of defeating an enemy militarily, which could have led to destruction if their enemy was more powerful than they were – what if they used subterfuge?"

"That – would make sense," said Hexen. "But we allied with them generations ago, you surely don't think they could keep up their subterfuge for this long?"

"That's the really crazy part," said Eothen. "I do. A civilization like Valdemar would take a long time to infiltrate and take over, I don't think they planned on it taking this long, but I do think they managed to do it."

"They began to infiltrate, and assumed they could just assassinate our leaders," said Hexen. "But they didn't count on the Heralds – no way would they have allowed a takeover."

"And with that kind of time, they also were able to destabilize and destroy all our allies, who did not have Heralds," said Eothen. "We have seen how successful that has been, and the same types of destabilization we saw in those countries, has been happening on a smaller scale, town by town, here."

"Wow," said Hexen. "And there aren't enough Heralds anymore to keep it from happening. With Gifts being less prevalent than in previous generations, the Companions have not been as fertile; that is why they are striking now."

"Why aren't Gifts as prevalent, or as strong, anyway?" asked Eothen. "Do you know?"

"I think it's because technology is taking the place of magic," said Hexen. "So whoever or whatever is responsible for giving the Gifts, doesn't think we need them anymore, I guess. Who knows what goes on in the minds of gods."

"Who indeed," said Eothen. "So anyway, the Council is debating on what to do about it, and before they decide, I think the decision wil be made for them."

 _:Now you understand Councils.:_ sad Aladrian.

 _:Now you finally wake up.:_ said Eothen, teasingly.

 _:I spent all that time running, you just sat there like a lump.:_ Aladrian said, just as teasingly.

"What are their options?" asked Hexen.

"There are two," answered Eothen. "One, recall all the Guard and Heralds, and basically re-conquer all Valdemaran territory. That would be faster and easier, but run the risk of killing innocents."

"As well as sacrificing all that Valdemar stands for in the first place," said Hexen. "What's the other option?"

"More of what we've been doing, basically," answered Eothen. "Pair up groups of 3 or 4 Heralds with Guard contingents and go town by town, quelling rebellion and arresting the instigators."

"Which takes a really long time, likely longer than we have," said Hexen. "And if the town fights, and wins, will stoke further rebellion with fewer soldiers to fight it now."

"Yes," said Eothen. "And judging from the level of fight the towns already have, I doubt that it would work. But if we do it the first way, what is it we're trying to save, anyway? Not Valdemar. Just….a country, which stands for nothing, and runs the risk of becoming even more brutal than the people we are trying to defeat."

"Right," said Hexen. "But right this instant, it is not our problem to solve. And I, for one, am very interested in giving you a proper welcome home."

"Oh really," said Eothen. And they spent the next few candlemarks not attempting to solve any problems at all.

Caryli was tired. Bone tired, the kind of tired that will not even come close to being fixed by mere sleep. She last had any of that two – three? – days ago. That was also the last time she'd had a chance to bathe, and she felt it. She was sure her fellow guard members could smell it too, but they were suffering the same lack, so they could hardly complain. She was not injured, which was more than she could say for anyone else under her command. The wagon carrying the wounded was a endless cycle; one would heal enough to return to duty, another would fall injured. Rika had healed; through mindspeech, however, it was decided that as much as Eothen and she missed each other, Rika would be next to useless in Haven. So she spent all her time hunting food for the Guard contingent; they were still hungry, but not starving, as they might have been save for her help. Caryli was grateful.

She was also grateful to Rika for her help in providing replacement mounts, for injured or exhausted horses. She had been forced to defeat some town in battle, so far successful, and unfortunately that first town had not been the only one she had had to burn. Rika had served there, as well, in attempting to rescue any animal trapped in a burning barn. Few were the towns where they could pass through in peace, and when they did, they made sure to eat – thereby spending money in towns that showed loyalty – and bathed in the rivers that flowed near them. The last such town had been – she remembered now – three days ago. She had gone as long as a sennight before, but she hated being dirty. She should have been a soapmaker; she considered the irony of someone as fastidiously clean as she preferred to be, working as Captain of a travelling Guard contingent, where bathing was irregular by necessity. She supposed it a good thing, though; without the exercise and spotty meals, she would have become quite overweight, as Samra was an excellent cook.

She sorely missed her wife. They were somewhat used to being apart, since Caryli worked as a field guard Captain and Samra was the chef in a noble's home; but Caryli's job was supposed to have been temporary, only until she could get promoted to Lieutenant and be stationed in either a city or a Guardpost permanently, and she would move Samra to be with her wherever that was. Their separation was only supposed to be for three or four moons; it had now been six. They had been delayed in every town, for much the same reason they were now fighting their way to Haven. Her Guard contingent had been on its way to the last town before the Guardpost where she would hopefully be awarded her promotion; that Lieutenant had earned his retirement and would be transferred to Haven to train new recruits. Caryli had hoped to be picked to replace him, and likely would have been, had those Heralds not raced up and needed help. Instead of enjoying her promotion and awaiting the arrival of her beloved Samra in the place where they could stay and make a home, here she was, hungry, tired and filthy, another fortnight out of Haven. At least she would have her reunion when she arrived, although she doubted even Samra would be excited to see her as filthy as she was.

Caryli sighed; they were a half-days ride out from the next town. This one was a big one, and she was nervous. It was big enough that in the past, when there had been enough Guard to go around, it would have had a small Guard contingent of its own. She wished it had; she would have at least been able to count on help. And a bath, when it was over. Maybe even some bread and ale, and camaraderie. But no matter; there was not another contingent, and she would just have to find a way to do it by herself. Somehow. If the town fought, she didn't believe she had the numbers to defeat it; neither could they successfully burn it without being killed halfway through. Burning a town, much as she hated to do it, only worked if they could finish the entire thing before enough townspeople could gather enough to fight back. This town was simply too big. So she decided to ride along the outskirts, not straight through the middle, the way they usually did. Down the middle tended to root out all the rebels at once, leaving the innocents safe in their homes, at least when they had the honor to fight an honest battle; but this town would have too many people to defeat, and enough nobility to have trained and organized their rebel army. So outskirts it was.

They began on the west side. They defeated all those that attacked; then rode again, this time on the east end of town. Then they rode down the first major road just inside the edge of the west side, then east. They continued riding through the town – really, it was a small city – west, then east, then west, closer and closer to the center until they were, in fact, riding and fight through the center of town. At this point it was nightfall, and her troops were exhausted, bloody, and most had minor or even severe injuries. But they couldn't stop until they finished, or else what rebels remained would regroup, and probably fight guerrilla style; they had no hope of winning if that happened. So they fought on, grimly, until the last rebel stopped fighting and the rest of the townspeople hung white sheets outside their windows, signaling their surrender.

"We have reclaimed this town for Valdemar, of which you are citizens," said Caryli, as loudly and clearly as she could. "The survivors will be executed for treason, as it is, in fact, treason to attack Valdemaran Guard and wage war. If any object, let them join the rebels, for I have neither the time nor the patience to hear debates and excuses."

She waited; none of the sheets wavered, signaling that at least these townspeople were not, currently, rebellious. That was the best she could do; she would have like to have interviewed them all independently, as she would have in a smaller town, but that would have taken days. She was beginning to feel the pressure of time; she needed to get to Haven. She could waste no more time here. She and her second-in-command finished executing the treasonous rebels; this was another part of her job she hated doing. Had there been a Guard contingent in this town, if they even were able to mount a rebellion, that standing guard would have staged a trial for the rebels, sending for a Herald if necessary, and they would have executed the rebels themselves. As it was, trials were largely abandoned for obvious treasonous acts and were executed by herself and her second. She knew it was the only sentence for treason the law allowed, and had she been promoted to that Guardpost, she would be the one carrying out such a sentence. Still, she did not relish it, and completed her task as quickly and with as much mercy as possible.

They made camp just outside the town, next to the river that large towns tended to grow up near. Finally, a bath. She used privilege of rank to go first, but she did not take her time. She unsaddled her horse and brushed him out well, and cleaned out her clothing, armor, and weapons as well. By then plenty of her crew had joined her; one of them had been responsible for setting up her tent, one for making the fire. Rika turned up just then with some venison; that would go nicely with the warthog she'd dropped off with the wagon just before the fighting. She wasted no time jumping into the river to get clean herself. Rysen cooked them a decent meal, for all that it was all meat, they set a watch for the night – Caryli decided to use one more privilege of rank and not take a turn, she was the one person that absolutely needed to be clear headed come morning in case of another battle, and currently she did not feel up to the task. So for once in over a moon, she slept the sleep of the dead until morning.

In the morning she woke, to a depressingly beautiful day. She didn't feel like the days should be anything but cold and grey when there was so much killing and fighting going on, but the weather was determined to fail to cooperate. For the next fortnight they rode towards Haven, relentlessly as ever. There were only a few towns left between Caryli and Haven, Caryli and Samra. She had to fight to keep their pace steady; everything in her wanted to ride at a gallop all the way to her beloved Samra, even though she knew her horse would lame himself and die long before she arrived if she tried. Finally, they arrived; she did quicken their pace and that point, at least as much as she could given the crowded and busy streets of the poor district. She made it to the merchant district next, and at least it smelled better; perfumes, soap, candles, desserts, sweet breads….all the smells of a thriving business district of a busy city. Next was the area reserved for nobility; Caryli started to get nervous and excited. This street would take them right past the one Samra worked in.

Eothen heard from Rika that both her bondmate and her friend the Guard Captain had made it to Haven. She decided to saddle up Aladrian and ride out to meet them; she was excited, she needed to get out, and she wanted to show off her Whites, if she was being honest. So she rode past the Palace gates, down the street she knew Caryli would be arriving from. She could see her friend coming; she decided to stop about two streets before she would meet them.

Caryli was ecstatic. She was almost to the house where Samra worked; and sure enough, her beloved came racing out the front door, a grin on Samra's face, and Caryli had one to match. She got ready to swing Samra onto her horse and hold her tight – when Samra stopped short. A confused look on her face. Samra opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out – only blood. Then she fell – and Caryli saw the blade in her wife's back.

Eothen saw her friend, and she saw what must be Samra run out to meet her; Samra was dark skinned, dark haired, a tiny little thing, really. Then she saw the knife appear in Samra's back; right in between her ribs, where she knew from experience, would pierce her heart. Even had a chirurgeon been present, she could not be saved. Then she heard an inhuman sounding wail, half pain, half anger – and realized it was coming from Caryli. Caryli stood up in her saddle and strung her bow, in the direction that Samra had been hit from – Eothen was not surprised to see a body hit the ground in front of her, bearing more knives matching the one in Samra's back. She was not surprised, however, that he was wearing the same green-grey weave she had seen on the mage and other rebels. Ur'nomi.

She was, however, surprised to see Caryli lying next to her wife. Dead. Not a mark on her.

 _:Well,:_ said Taia sadly, _:I guess lifebonds still exist afterall.:_


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter twenty-three**

Eothen was heartbroken over the loss of her friend. She was also angry that she had been focusing on seeing Caryli again, and not on ensuring that she would be safe. She knew, practically, that she could not foresee this happening; Samra could hardly have been considered a target, and Eothen hadn't had any idea where she had been anyway. But she still felt like she should have been able to stop it. She sat holed up in her room, leaning against Rika. She was happy to be reunited with her, anyway. Hexen was busy being a chirurgeon – he had called Caryli's death as due to something called broken heart syndrome – but he would be there soon enough; she was just happy to have given her report and nothing more was needed of her for the rest of the day.

 _:You could not have predicted it,:_ said Taia, repeating what Eothen already knew, for the hundredth time. _:Or stopped it. And once Samra had died, Caryli would not have wanted to live. I have felt that pain, the loss of your lifebonded; it is not something I would care to repeat.:_

 _:How did you die?:_ Eothen asked suddenly, realizing she had no idea.

 _:In a most un-warriorlike fashion,:_ said Taia. _:Whitestar and I were sitting under that tree; it was a hot summer day, we had an afternoon off and we were out enjoying the weather and each other's company, undisturbed. Whitestar suffered a clot to her brain; had it happened to me, she could have healed me of it, but as it was….it did not. She died; I followed shortly after.:_

 _:Why does this Goddess you speak of create lifebonds?:_ asked Eothen _. :It seems rather stupid. I mean, why is regular love and marriage not enough? Why does the death of one person mean the loss of one who otherwise would go on living?:_

 _:I don't know.:_ said Taia. _:Would you want to outlive Aladrian? I did not want to survive the loss of Whitestar; I know she would not have wanted to survive my loss, either. I knew one man who survived the loss of his lifebonded, only because he was bonded as well to his Companion; he was a shadow of himself. I doubt he thanked his Companion for keeping him there. I also knew my sister's beloved widow, not lifebonded; she did not wish for death, but neither did she fight it when it came, and she never married again.:_

Eothen thought about it. She couldn't be a Herald without Aladrian, and she didn't see it as a hindrance to not survive his loss; but she didn't think she would have chosen it. She was glad to not be lifebonded to Hexen; she loved him, but she would not die without him. She still didn't know what the benefit was.

 _:Imagine me.:_ said Rika. _:I am the last of my kind. That is a horribly lonely feeling. If you die, I would not survive without a bond to take its place, the way Taia's friend had his Companion. With you, with our bond, I am not lonely. That is worth it.:_

 _:Bonded to Whitestar – at first, I didn't think I wanted it either.:_ said Taia. _:I had endured moons of everyone in my tribe in my head because no one taught me how to shield and I wasn't sure I wanted even just her in my head. And I had all the same thoughts you do – I thought that my dying just because she had was a horrible price to pay.:_

 _:What changed your mind?:_ asked Eothen. She still thought the price too high.

 _:I never had to be alone again.:_ said Taia. _:She is with me, always, and she loves me, all of me, without hesitation or regret, even the parts that aren't so charming. She knows all my secrets, the ones I even keep from myself, everything about me, and loves me with all of her being not in spite of that, but because of it. And I love her, in the same way. Can you think of anything that beats that?:_

Eothen couldn't. For the first time, she almost wished she and Hexen were lifebonded; but though she knew she couldn't beat that kind of love, she was also not sorry she didn't have it. She did love Hexen, and she knew he loved her; that was enough. She would miss him if he were gone, but she didn't want to die just because he did, and she didn't want the reverse, either.

 _:What I don't understand is how Caryli could tolerate being separated from Samra for that long,:_ said Taia. _:I once made it, involuntarily, about a moon; it nearly drove us both mad. Caryli and Samra were apart for six. I don't know how they could do it.:_

Something in Taia's mindvoice told Eothen not to ask how it was that she was involuntarily made to do anything. It was hard for her, because she was extremely curious; but she managed to restrain herself.

 _:Well,:_ she began, _:we have fewer Gifts then in your day, and the ones we do have are weaker; could it be that lifebonds are as well?:_

 _:I suppose.:_ agreed Taia, _:Or maybe they built up a sort of tolerance. We never tried; we weren't interested in being apart, not for any length of time, so why bother to try? But we had jobs and skills that would make that possible. Caryli and Samra did not. :_

 _:That's true.:_ agreed Eothen. _:Rysen had just joined the guard contingent in order to secure safe passage from one town to the next.:_

 _:So they did it perhaps out of necessity.:_ said Taia. _:Thank the Goddess we never had to make that choice.:_

Eothen could hear the sadness in Taia's mindvoice at the prospect of anyone being apart from their lifebonded, and she was once again happy she wasn't bonded to Hexen. She loved him – but she also loved being separate from him. She wouldn't have wanted to be unable to be apart from him; just the thought made her feel confined and helpless. But she also could see that Taia did not regret her bond with Whitestar; she supposed there was good and bad either way. Lifebonds – yes, she could see how never being alone, always having someone who knew everything about her and loving her anyway, would be lovely. But it would also be hard to never be independent. She knew Hexen loved her; and he didn't have to. But he also didn't know her as well as he would have, not that she was really sure she would want that. She supposed she was just too used to being independent.

A few days later, Hexen finished at the chirurgeon's center; they were seeing a lot of wounds as if Haven were a battlefield. Lacerations from knife fights, missing fingers or even limbs from a sword, arrow wounds – Hexen couldn't believe what he was seeing. The city itself operated fairly normally, but he could sense a kind of tension, the feeling that something horrible was about to happen. No one could quite put their finger on where it was coming from, what was going to happen, or why; but everyone knew _something_ was going on. It was enough to drive him, and no few other, completely mad. And he was normally very level-headed, didn't believe in anything he couldn't prove; he could only imagine how people more superstitious were feeling.

He walked through the courtyard towards his and Eothen's rooms, enjoying the fresh air and the quiet. He walked slowly; he was anxious to see Eothen, but she was different since returning from circuit. He had expected that; rationally, he knew she would. She had been an adult, of course, but hadn't served any greater purpose than her own need to survive. Also, she had not been a native Valdemaran; she had depended on him for explaining Valdemaran culture, and she was markedly separate from them. Now – she was different. He was not central in her life anymore. She still loved him, of course, but she was more focused on figuring out what would solve the oncoming – whatever was coming. She said towns and cities all over were staging rebellions; he didn't disbelieve her, she was not prone to exaggeration or fear, but he found it hard to believe nonetheless. Valdemar? Rebellious? Surely the Heralds would be able to handle that; wouldn't they? They seemed invincible, as a whole, as did Valdemar herself. He could accept the fall of Jkatha, Hardorn, Rethwellan, even Karse – but Valdemar? It seemed impossible.

It was just sunset; he decided to stop by the dining hall to get dinner for both himself and Eothen. He knew how often she forgot to eat, left to own devices. He had taken pains also to get them rooms together, moving them in together as a gift. Tonight would be their first night in their new rooms; he couldn't wait to see how she would like them. He took some beef sandwiches on thick bread with cheese, and a sauce to dip it in. He grabbed some grilled asparagus that had been grilled with lemon and garlic, and fruit pies with cream for dessert. He piled it all on a tray and added big cups of ale. The tray was awkward and heavy, but he thought it would be worth it to arrive with dinner to celebrate with Eothen. He walked carefully to the room; he had instructed a page to escort Eothen ahead of him, so he was not surprised to see her already there. But he was surprised to see her angry.

"HOW DARE YOU?!" she yelled. He had no idea what she so angry about. "HOW DARE YOU, HAVE MY THINGS MOVED, MAKE THE DECISION TO LIVE TOGETHER, WITHOUT EVEN DISCUSSING IT WITH ME?"

"I, um, I thought you'd be happy," he stammered, setting down the tray of food. "I thought it would be a good surprise, and you didn't even have to worry about packing, I know how busy you are…"

"I am not your child!" Eothen continued to yell, but not quite so loud; there was no need for the whole hallway to know their business. "You do not own me. You do not make decisions for me. I should march right out of here and bunk with Aladrian; at least he doesn't treat me as his property!"

"But – " Hexen was still flummoxed. He loved her, he knew she loved him; why couldn't she see that this was for the best? "I brought dinner, I thought you would be happy – "

"UGH!" said Eothen. How could he have thought she would be HAPPY he had made such an important decision without her?! "I already ate! I am an adult, I can actually feed myself! I have done since I was ten winters old! I will decide what to do with this mess tomorrow; I am tired. And I am leaving."

She grabbed a thick blanket – careful to make sure it was actually hers, not his – and stormed out to sleep in Aladrian's stall. Rika joined her as well, after glaring at Hexen and flattening her ears at him. She had really been looking forward to her own bed, alone; she was just so tired. She couldn't figure out why, exactly, she was busy – but not any more than she had been on circuit. She assumed it was stress, but either way – she had just wanted to sleep. Maybe visit with Hexen before bed, but that was it; she wanted to relax. And now she would sleep, instead, in a barn on a bed of straw. No matter, she supposed, it would be warm enough with both Aladrian and Rika, and her blanket.

She slept surprisingly well. She got up early and went to breakfast, and then to "her" room, as she would at least need to change clothes, and she would really like a bath. But first, she grabbed a page and asked whether or not her old room was still available, and hearing that it was, if her things could be moved back to it.

"I's awful sorry, miss Eothen," said the page. "Mr Hexen said it was fine to move it, he said you'd agreed, and evr'thing."

"I'm sure he did," replied Eothen. "It's not you're fault, and I'm sorry for the extra work. Thank you."

Eothen took a deep breath and opened the door. What she saw almost made her change her mind; but she was far too angry, and she had had enough. When she first came to Valdemar, she had been afraid to have a separate room from Hexen; but that was when she didn't know a soul, didn't speak the language well, didn't know the culture, didn't know her way around. She had already been an adult, earning her own keep and making her own decisions, rather stubbornly, for some time. She had thought, by sending that letter about Hexen's declaring who she could and could not be partnered with for training, she had made clear that she would not be treated like a child. She had thought she had made clear that SHE would make her own decisions; she would not have them made for her. So much of her life decisions had been taken from her by virtue of beig Chosen – she would not give up the rest. She thought Hexen knew that. She thought he knew her and respected her. She was disappointed, to say the least, to discover otherwise.

Hexen was sitting on the bed, but he had obviously not slept well. His hair was a mess, his face was stained with tears, he was wearing the same rumpled clothing he had been wearing last night. He looked pathetic. If she hadn't loved him she would find him repulsive.

"I'm sorry," said Hexen, but what followed was not as good as it started. "But I don't understand why you're upset."

"Really?" Eothen said. "You don't understand. Let me explain. Again. You treat me like a child. Like I'm your possession. I thought I made clear with that letter regarding the whole you thought you could dictate my field training that I am an adult, but no. you didn't get it."

"You're still mad about that?" Hexen said, almost whining. "That was ages ago!"

"I wouldn't be mad, if you'd learned your lesson," she said. "But you did not. I was so excited to see you when I returned; but you have been smothering me."

"I don't understand," said Hexen. He was crying again.

"Clearly," said Eothen. "Now, it is true, I forget to eat sometimes; more accurately I am to busy to do so. I am trying to prevent the destruction of Valdemar. But while I appreciate you bringing food, I am capable of feeding myself. I am responsible for my own health."

"But I like eating with you," said Hexen. "It's romantic, it feels like family."

"I like it too, but I do NOT like your constant assumption that need to be taken care of. But that, I could deal with; this deciding to move my things, to a new room, living together, lying to a page saying I'd agreed to it – that I cannot abide."

"What….what are you saying?" Hexen paled.

"I'm saying it's over, Hexen," said Eothen. "I cannot continue being with someone who treats me with such disrespect. I cannot be with someone who thinks I need taking care of."

"But," Hexen said, "I love you."

"And I love you," Eothen said. "But that isn't enough. I need my independence, and I need to be respected as an adult, not as property, not as some child. You have not shown that you can learn to do that. I have no more time to teach you. The pages will be by to collect my things. Goodbye, Hexen."

Eothen left the room. She could hear Hexen begging her to reconsider; she almost did. She really did love him, and she knew he did love her; but she felt smothered by him, too. She hadn't even intended to break up with him today; but the more she thought about it, the madder she got. And she had thought spending the evening alone, after what he had clearly thought was going to be a joyous occasion, would have gotten him thinking about what she'd said. When she realized that he still had no idea what she was even angry about, and there was no "aha moment" when she explained – she didn't have the time, or the energy for that anymore. She was busy trying to figure out how to save Valdemar; between meetings with the council, the Heralds, the Guard, even the chirurgeons, she had no time to spend trying to explain to Hexen that she was, in fact, a person.

 _:Maybe you were too hard on him.:_ said Taia. _:He did grow up in a fairly patriarchal society. His mother was Valdemaran, yes, but his father was Karsite – and they are a patriarchal society. He was better than his countrymen, but still patriarchal.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ said Eothen. Taia was the last person she had thought would have a problem with her dumping Hexen. _:Maybe when this is over, I will have the time to teach him. But as it is – I do not.:_

 _:And I am saying love doesn't happen to everyone.:_ said Taia. _:Lifebond or no, not everyone finds someone to love who loves them back. Don't throw it away lightly.:_

 _:Hmph.:_ said Eothen. Maybe Taia was right; maybe she was making a mistake. But it was hers to make. And somehow she just couldn't spare any time or energy for Hexen. She felt unreasonably tired, lately; she knew she was busy, but not as busy as she had been on circuit. She had decided that it was due to her wild ride across Valdemar, but she would have thought she had recovered by now. But no matter how much she slept, she could not stop feeling exhausted. And she was so hungry, all the time, and sometimes for the strangest things. She had even taken to eating the meals that Hexen had brought her when she had already eaten, which did have the unfortunate problem of having him think she had not, in fact, eaten. But she was never hungry in the morning, which was normally her favorite meal, but she felt ill just thinking about food in the morning.

When she started gaining weight, she attributed that to having eaten to much, so she tried cutting back and finding time to work out in drills with the Guard – she figured that would be a good idea anyway. She spent time riding Aladrian as well, but she just couldn't seem to stop gaining weight. Or eating, either, she was so hungry. And so tired.

When she had missed two of her moon courses, she finally had to admit it. The first one she had guessed was stress, she had never been terrifically regular anyway. But two in a row? That had never happened. And a visit to a midwife confirmed it.

She was pregnant. With twins, the midwife said, she heard two heartbeats. Not just one. And they were, of course, Hexen's.

 _Sheka._


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter twenty four**

Eothen could not believe she had been so stupid to get pregnant when the world was such a mess. She was supposed to help fix it, not be laid up big as a caravan or nursing infants! And certainly not now, when she'd broken things off with their father. She knew exactly when it happened, too; she hadn't been taking her preventative during her wild ride to Haven. She had resumed the day after her return, but that first morning when she first reunited with Hexen….. _sheka_. She felt like she was letting the whole world down. Like she was letting Valdemar down. And worst of all – like she was letting Taia down. _:Stop that.:_ Taia said. _:How could having a child – two children – be letting anyone down? How could bringing new life be anything but good news?:_ _:The timing:_ Eothen said. _:The timing could not be more awful. I mean, whatever the Council decides, or has decided for them which is more likely at this point, there will be hard fighting ahead. And they need every fighter they can get. I, however, will become more and more incapacitated as the moons pass. So how can this be anything but bad?:_ _:How do you know that this, precisely, is not absolutely necessary to happen in order to save the world?:_ said Aladrian. _:There is more than one way to save the world. Sometimes it needs destroying in order to rebuild.:_ Well that didn't make a bit of sense. How can you save the world by letting it be destroyed? _:Why does saving the world mean it has to stay the same?:_ said Rika. _:I am the last of my kind. When I die, there will be no more_ kyree _. Things change – always. Your people, and mine, used to live with honor and distinction on the Dhorisha Plains. Now they wander selling trinkets. Taia was a very powerful mage; there is no more real magic. The Companions cannot renew their numbers, even the numbers they have, much less what once was. The world as we all know it, is dying. Valdemar is the only nation still standing at all; the rest rule city to city. The only thing left is to start over.:_ Eothen thought about that. The only thing keeping Valdemar standing were the Heralds; but if Rika was right, and she had no reason to doubt her, soon enough there would be no more Companions. Aladrian had said as much already – for whatever reason, they were increasingly unable to reproduce. The gryphons, the tervardi, the hertasi, the ratha – they were long gone. Only the dyheli survived. There was no more Karse, no Hardorn, Haighlei, Seejay, Rethwellan, Jkatha, even Iftel had failed to withstand the onslaught of time; for all practical purposes, the Shin'a'in and Tale'edras existed only as distant memory. The people themselves lived, but without distinction. And if she was honest, she had to admit – saving Valdemar would take a miracle, at best. And there would be a battle of some kind, and because Heralds always risked their lives to save literally anyone else, and they insisted on wearing those ridiculous white uniforms – she supposed it didn't matter, they already rode white horses – there would more of them to die than anyone else. So it had been in every war Valdemar had ever fought; but in those days, Companions had more children, and more Heralds were Chosen and trained to refill the ranks. That would no longer be possible. So saving some vestige of civilization might happen, but everything that made Valdemar – Valdemar? Would die. What was the point, then? What were they saving? Why not just give up? _:Now just you wait a minute.:_ said Taia. _:Do you see Rika, or Aladrian, without any hope? Rika KNOWS she is the last, and yet she stands ready to help save whatever can be saved. Likewise Aladrian KNOWS there will soon come a time without Companions, and yet here he is as well. There are bigger things to save than Valdemar.:_ _:WHAT?:_ said Eothen. _:If we are not here to save Valdemar, the only remaining vestige of civilization, what are we here to save? I'm honestly confused.:_ _:Hope.:_ said Taia. _:We are here to save hope. Everything dies – people, animals, plants, magic, nations – everything. For it to be renewed, we need hope to survive. That is how we begin again. Valdemar itself will not survive; but your children will. And with them, hope.:_ Eothen thought about that. She could see the logic in that, though it made her incredibly sad. But Taia was right, Valdemar was dying. Whether they withstood this particular rebellion or not, it was dying. The only question would be whether it would die fighting in a battle against lawlessness, with barely a whimper as the Companions slowly died out to leave the world without clear direction. Would they go down in flame, or would they wither and die in their beds? She knew what she would choose – she would prefer to fight. But now she would have to think of her children, first; she could not just go down fighting because it's what she would prefer. She would have to survive, because they would need to survive. _:As I would have.:_ said Taia. _:Since I spent so much time being a warrior, it never even occurred to me that I would die any other way; either Whitestar, or I, would be hit with a lucky sword blow, or one too many mage blasts. But alas, Whitestar was too good a Healer to let us die from physical wounds and – well, there were very few – really, only one – mage in our lifetime that came close to the two of us combined in power. So really, we had no choice but to wait to get old, and for something to go wrong with Whitestar first. Under that tree, that one that hangs over the river – we really couldn't have asked for better.:_ _:What mage was that?:_ Eothen asked. Somehow, she never tired of hearing stories about her ancestor, even though they never seemed quite real. _:A blood mage.:_ said Taia. _:There is energy in pain, and more when someone dies – all life is energy, and mages can use that. No – I never did. No reputable mage has, only the most evil, despicable, mages ever do. This particular one was powerful on his own, and used his power to force an army to fight. The more he conquered, the more he gained in power. I commanded the armies of Valdemar, Hardorn, Karse, Rethwellan,Jkatha, Iftel, mercenaries as well as delegations from Shin'a'in and Tale'edras to fight against him, and still we were outnumbered by more than three-to-one. Whitestar and I then had to fight him magically when I judged his army whittled down enough, and we very nearly lost. It was only due to the aid of 3 other mages that we succeeded.:_ _:Wow.:_ said Eothen. _:Wouldn't that mean he was more powerful than you though?:_ _:He wasn't, not on his own. At least not more powerful than Whitestar and myself combined.:_ said Taia. _:But he was using the energy created by the raging battle also happening. All that death and pain made him stronger. I tried to account for that; I miscalculated. I wanted to take him out as early as I thought I was able; otherwise, not only would more people die in battle than needed to, but I also risked my own life in that battle, and if Whitestar or I fell – there was no one left to counter him. Firesong was at least nearly as powerful as I or Whitestar alone, and twice as creative; but the only reason the two of us were strong enough to try was because we each had access to each other's energies. Firesong didn't have that. And still, we ended up needing his energy along with Darkwind and Elspeth's as well.:_ Those names – Elspeth and Firesong, anyway – sounded familiar. And she had known the story of her ancestor led a dozen armies in glorious victory over an evil mage. But this detail – wasn't part of her bedtime stories. That was all to the good; she knew that war wasn't as glorious or as straightforward as a bedtime story or a legend. So she dearly loved hearing the real story. _:Do you think the mages working for the rebellion are blood mages?:_ she asked. _:Huh,:_ said Taia. _:Leave it to you to ask the smart questions. I think it's the only thing that makes sense. That one that attacked Alek wasn't a blood mage – I would have sensed that. But whoever used that Gate – that's the only way such a thing could have been done.:_ _:Then how will we defeat him?:_ asked Eothen. _:We have no mages. And once the battle begins….:_ _:Valdemar survived without mages for generations, against armies that had them.:_ said Taia. _:But you're right, those were different times. Gifts were strong, and there were plenty of Heralds. Now – I honestly don't know.:_ Well that was reassuring, Eothen thought. But – the mage who attacked Alek had been taken out by a sword. Maybe this one would be, too. She would certainly try. She just hoped there weren't too many of them. Meanwhile, the Council still hadn't really made a decision. Eothen guessed it was equal parts because they couldn't believe it was really happening, they thought they had endless time, and they were caught between two very poor options. But in the absence of a Council decision, one was being made for them. Most of the field Heralds were returning, unbidden by the Council, either because their Companions bid them to or because they were, as Eothen had been, forced to return due to the rebellion which was now rampant, and while any and all of them would be willing to die in service of Valdemar, that was no reason to die needlessly. So they returned. Often they returned with injured Guard, injured fighting that same rebellion. And still the bell in the courtyard, the one that rang only when a Herald died, rang with alarming regularity. Herald Trainees – precious few of them as it was – were graduated early and given their Whites. Teaching was only for battle and Gift training. Anything else could wait until this was over; although Eothen sensed a growing doubt that they would make it that far. Or maybe that was just her own opinion; she wasn't sure. Thoughtsensing was Alek's gift, not hers. Still. She couldn't help wondering how they would survive, and she was beginning to think it impossible; Taia was likely correct. The only way out was to die, the country to burn, and the survivors to start over. But she was determined to at least die fighting. So she visited the salle for hours, learning to fight around her rapidly growing abdomen. Hexen, for his part in the fatherly duties, had reacted to her pregnancy by – unsurprisingly – trying to convince Eothen to marry him. But while Eothen had no intention of keeping her children away from their father, marriage – even just getting back together with Hexen – was not going to happen. This was even more unlikely to happen since he began doting on her whenever he could find her, trying to feed her, to get her to lie down – all the time – and so she found herself out of necessity avoiding him whenever possible. Eothen felt horrible about this, and she had mixed feelings about it too; e did like Hexen, even still loved him. But she also felt smothered by him, just one more person demanding her time, her energy, her feelings. Maybe when this was over, she would be able to work it out; until then, she just couldn't cope with it. It just was too much pressure. She had to live at least long enough to have her babies, and if not raise them herself find someone who could, get into fighting shape for a war that could break out at any time, be prepared to ride out with the army if that was what the infernally indecisive council decided that would be their solution, AND tend to a smothering, overprotective father-to-be and ex-partner of hers whom she may or may not want to get back with? Too much. And then she heard that all along the borders of Valdemar, the rebellion had won. Cities and towns were under Valdemar's umbrella in name only; in reality, they had declared themselves independent, each town or city ruling itself. Fights occasionally would break out, fighting to gain ground over the next town, only to lose it again in the next battle. Eothen wasn't terribly surprised; border towns were always the first to fall. They were farthest from the capital's influence, for one, and more susceptible to influences from across the border. And every other country had already fallen; it was simply common sense that if anything fell, the borders would be first. Then reports came in that the Ashkevron lands had fallen, as had everything north of them; then the Holderkin lands fell. Eothen would have thought they would be first, since everyone knew Holderkin didn't really like being part of Valdemar at all; but it seemed that what they really didn't like was being told what to do by anyone, and that included rebellion. It wasn't the rebelling that was their problem – it was being told to do it. Eothen had to admit she had a lot in common with Holderkin. Soon it was the entire Southern border that was out of control, and moving North fast. Then it was the Eastern border, then Northern, and then Western – a day's ride outside of Haven in any direction was no longer under Valdemaran rule. And finally, the council decided the threat was, in fact, real, and their only choice was to attempt to hold Haven itself. Heralds and Guard were recalled for this purpose, which was near to being useless, because mostly anyone caught outside of Haven had either returned, wounded, or perished in the attempt to either flee or defend. That bell in the courtyard rang at least daily. And still the rebellion, nameless, faceless, pushed ever inward, until all that remained of Valdemar was within the gates of Haven herelf. Guards on the gate and walls were doubled, with orders to shoot anyone not hoisting a white flag. Gates were not to be opened under any circumstances; anyone who could be verified as belonging inside those walls would have an armed – and armed heavily – guard escort through the one gate that would be opened once a day, at dusk, should there be anyone to open it for. If they lived long enough to pass through, they would spend a sennight it gaol in order to verify no ill intent. And still, from within Haven, reports came in of people being murdered by trowing knives or arrow, and no one could ever pinpoint who ha done it. Guard walked the streets at night and in broad daylight, never fewer than groups of three, and they were picked off. One fell here, one there, and despite a full pursuit on the part of the surviving two no one was ever caught. The people were afraid to leave their homes – and Eothen could not blame them. She was afraid herself. She began wearing her armor to the salle, where she continued to practice, instead of putting it on when she arrived; she never went anywhere without being fully armed. Rika ran scout patterns around her at all time, hoping to catch a scent of someone who shouldn't be there; Aladrian even started insisting that she ride whenever she went outside, even just to the salle and back. She seldom went anywhere else. At least, she didn't until the Guard was to thin in number to patrol anything but the outskirts of Haven, leaving the Heralds to guard the nobility. The army stood watch on the gates and the walls, and they did help; but getting picked off by unseen attackers was getting to morale. Eothen supposed that was the point. And then one day the unseen attackers began picking off people right there inside the Collegia themselves. And their first victim was Hexen – caught with an arrow through the neck, trying to bring food to Eothen at the salle, because once again, he was convinced she wasn't eating.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter twenty-five**

Eothen was devastated with Hexen's death. Until recently he'd been the only person she could have even considered marrying; he was the father of her children, and she had loved him dearly. She was also angry with herself. She had decided to get back together with him when this was all over; she just wanted to wait, and focus all her attention on preparing for the end of the world, which she knew, intellectually, she could never be prepared for. She had been a coward, really, unwilling to admit she'd been hasty to break it off, that yes she was angry he'd moved her things in with him without asking – but if he had asked, she'd have said yes. She had mostly been afraid to admit just how much she'd loved him. She had wasted all that time between then and the end of the world being a coward, instead of spending those months being happy.

Well, one thing was sure, she would never have the opportunity to make that mistake again.

She wanted to take a day, a sennight, a moon to just sit a cry; but the end of the world, alas, would not wait, for which she could not prepare but was coming nonetheless. So she continued to train through her tears, to patrol through her grief, to await the impending birth of her children thorough her heartbreak. They were due in about a moon, now, and she was terrified. How was she qualified to raise a child, let alone two, and at the same time, when she was so ill-equipped to manage her own life? And how could she do this alone, and after the end of the world had already happened? Would she even survive? Would they have shelter, food? She could live in a cave, but that was no place to raise children. Better than a battleground, she supposed, but not by much.

And the killing of Guard, Heralds, and army continued. People were hit with arrows, knives, anything by unseen attackers; if Eothen hadn't known better she would swear the attackers were ghosts. And then the burning started. Every day a different section of Haven was set on fire; the Guard and Heralds had to spend all their time trying to put out fires now, while citizens died by the hundreds either by attackers on the other side of town or in the flames themselves; a good portion of the windows of buildings set on fire were boarded up from the outside, doors nailed shut. The stench of burning flesh was constant; so were the screams of the dying.

That bell in the courtyard rung almost constantly now.

Soon the outskirts, the poor area of Haven had burned, and two-thirds of its inhabitants killed. They started burning the merchant and tradesman area next, only this time the enemy showed their faces and actually fought pitched battles. Between trying to put out fires and fight battles int the streets of Haven – Valdemar was losing. Their enemy, all dressed in that strange bluish-greyish clothing, identifying them as this Ur'nomi tribe that Valdemar had once deemed allied and unsophisticated. Eothen wondered what would have happened if, so long ago, Taia's generation had waged battle on them, instead of becoming allies. Or, supposed allies, anyway. Somehow they had, indeed, waged subterfuge take over Valdemar over the course of two hundred years; Eothen thought that was hardly unsophisticated.

 _:We likely would have lost then, too.:_ Taia answered her unasked question. _:We could barely hold our own in mage battle; our army was smaller, still, than full strength due to the war with the blood mage, and we would have had to gate there, rendering most of our mages useless on arrival, or marched through the Pelagiris, getting picked off here and there along the way, rendering our army mostly useless on arrival. Those options were discussed thoroughly, and that's why it looked so promising to try to be allies with them instead.:_

Much as she hated to admit it, that did make sense. She supposed she would have made the same choices, given what Taia's people had known at the time.

 _:But maybe you should have gotten to know their history along the way, and maybe been prepared for this.:_ she said. _:This cannot be the first time they used subterfuge.:_

 _:We did try.:_ answered Taia. _:But they only told us what they wanted us to hear, and what books they did keep – well, history is written by whoever won the war, isn't it? Anyway, none of that gets us out of the here and now. Yes, we could have, maybe should have, done things differently; but we didn't. So here we are.:_

Well that much was true. And Eothen certainly had enough to do besides decide how things should have been done differently two hundred years ago.

It only took a moon before all of Haven was on fire, even the Palace. All the Collegia and Palace lay in ruins beneath her King had been killed without an heir – he had a daughter, but she had perished as well. Eothen knew there were very few Heralds left; the belltower had fallen, and still it rang through whatever magic the Companions used to ring it. It echoed constantly her ears now, and she both dreaded the moment it stopped and the constant hearing of it.

And then it did stop. Not because the war had, but because she was the only Herald left. And she wouldn't be, for much longer, the way this battle was going. The army and Guard was still fighting what little was left of them, not because they could win but because they continued to be attacked and there was nothing left to do but try to at least take their attacker with them when they fell. She fought on, knowing it was hopeless; but she had more than just herself to live for, she had her unborn children. So she held on to Aladrian grimly, fighting, hoping for a miracle. Hoping that the ghost of her ancestor would in fact help her fight with an ability not her own. She swung those ancient swords, and for a time she felt indeed that it was not her, but someone infinitely more capable than she was swinging them as she took down one after another after another of the enemies coming at her – but there were too many. She was good on her own, Aladrian was certainly a good fighter, and whatever skill was taking over her body was incredible – but there were too many enemies. Aladrian was hit in the chest solidly with a crossbow bolt, and Eothen herself screamed from the pain; the wound would be fatal, but not immediately.

They fought their way to a place where they could try to flee, and so they did; into what was left of the forest they ran, ran until Aladrian couldn't go on. He collapsed to the ground, his once shining white coat sodden with sweat and blood. He was gasping for air; the crossbow bolt had punctured a lung. It was only by a miracle of some sort that he had made it this far.

 _:I fear I will leave you soon.:_ he said into Eothen's mind.

"No, no, you'll be fine," cried Eothen. "You'll be fine, we'll just – "

And then Eothen realized, suddenly, that the pain she had been feeling all day and the wetness in her pants was not just tiredness and sweat. She was in labor. Her children were coming. She couldn't breathe.

 _:Relax, young one.:_ said Taia. _:It will all be fine. Your children will be the founding of the new world; this one is gone. It is the way of things; like seasons, worlds come and go. It is time for the next. Relax.:_

Eothen opened her eyes, and she would swear she saw the image of a woman, one who looked not unlike herself, smiling at her. There seemed to be a secondary image of a blonde, half superimposed on the first; but more interestingly than that, there was a blue haze around Eothen and Aladrian. The flames couldn't reach them, and neither could the fighting.

 _:I have given you a shield.:_ said Taia. _:Nothing will harm you. Aladrian, alas – Whitestar cannot save him. I am sorry. But she can keep him alive, and therefore you, until the birth of your sons.:_

"But how will they live?" asked Eothen aloud. "How will they live, without anyone to care for them?"

 _:I will guard them.:_ said Rika. _:I will guard them with my life and raise them as my own pups. They shall be my children. They shall want for nothing. They shall be loved and cared for, for they are the future, the fathers of the new world.:_

It had to be enough; Eothen knew that Aladrian couldn't hold on much longer, with or without the assistance of Whitestar. So she focused on the birth of her children – and nothing else. She blocked out the flames, the ghosts of Taia and her lifebonded – and even Aladrian's pain. She delivered the first child and hoped briefly that the healer had been wrong; she wasn't sure she could handle another birth. But she had not been wrong, and soon she was delivering the second son.

She could feel Aladrian slipping, and she knew the end was near; the boys needed names. That was the least she could do, she supposed; their father was dead, their mother would soon follow and they would be raised by a _kyree._ The least she could do was give them their names.

"Remus," she said. "The elder shall be called Remus. It means 'swift', in the language of his father. The younger is Romulus. It means 'strength'. Do not let them forget who their parents were."

 _:I shall not.:_ said Rika. _:They shall know their parents loved them. They shall know their parents were brave and strong, and sacrificed everything that they might live. They shall know where they come from.:_

"Thank you," said Eothen.

 _:It is time, young one. I cannot hold this shield up any longer, and Whitestar cannot keep Aladrian alive anymore. To do so would be cruel, even if she could. Come with us. Come and join us in the afterlife, and watch the world begin again.:_

And with that, the blue glow disappeared; Aladrian breathed his last, after sending Eothen one last wave of love and goodbye. Eothen moaned with the grief of losing him, of that bond being suddenly gone; she had lost everything. It was time to go. She kissed her babies goodbye and strapped them to Rika's back; she also strapped on her swords, the ones she had inherited from her father, and he from his father, back to Taia. Her sons would wield these swords, although she did regret she would not be able to teach them the double-sword technique they were intended for. But it was fitting; there were two of them. They would each need their own. Rika took off at a run towards whatever safety she could find – and Eothen closed her eyes. She felt her consciousness fading as she chased Aladrian to the afterlife. It was bright; bright, warm, and peaceful. She felt the embrace of all her ancestors, and she knew that she was finally home.


End file.
